James L. Baker

“ They may, in the designs of Providence, have an important mission to perform,—that mission being, for aught we know, to carry back from their long sojourn in a land of bondage the seeds of civilization to benighted Africa, the home of their fathers. Whatever may be their ultimate fate, I do not feel warranted in hastening and deciding it by exterminating them, or, in other words, dissolving the tie that binds them to those whose duty and interest it is to protect them. A heavy burden lies upon the backs of the masters, which they cannot throw off at will, and with which we are not burdened. ”

“ As fast as a people become capable of self-control or self-government, just so fast the government becomes modified to meet their wants; for they are in fact the government, and rulers are but their representatives.
This view of liberty will be considered, I am aware, by many as very heretical and not at all in accordance with the facts of history or the nature of man. To some it will, no doubt, appear new as well as strange, and very doubtful. That what we call constitutional liberty, however, depends mainly upon the peculiar physical and moral temperament of a people, I cannot doubt. ”

“ We have no landed aristocracy which, in England, stands between the people and the throne, keeping each from encroaching upon the other, nor any real check in our system of government, unless it is the fixed fact of a large number of States, whose population is naturally and necessarily conservative, and which stands like a rock against the surging waves of popular excitement of agrarianism and radicalism from whatever quarter they may come. ”

“ Strange and desperate as the movement was, it seems to have been the natural and necessary result of the long twenty years' war, waged in the free States upon the institutions of the South, the culminating point, it is to be hoped, in a reform based on no sound principle, and which, like an epidemic, has swept over the land, fruitful only in bitter words, harsh recrimination, sectional hostility, and ending, like the last act of a tragedy, in violence and murder. ”

“ When we consider that the slave is supported from birth until he can labor, and from the time when he can no longer work until he dies, and also that at best his services are not worth more than one-third as much as those of free labor, it is very easy to see that he is the best paid laborer in the world, as it is certainly true that a more happy and contented laboring population is not to be found among civilized or uncivilized nations. With rare exceptions, the relation of master and slave in our Southern States is a very happy one, at least to the slave. ”

“ We shall find, if we look at the different nations of the world, that each enjoys that degree of liberty, either political or social, which most contributes to its happiness. If this were not the case with any nation, it is certain that its condition would be changed at once, to correspond to its wants and capacities. No government, however despotic, could for a moment prevent such a result; nor is it at all safe to judge of the real condition of a nation, by the excited harangues of such enthusiasts as Kossuth and Mazzini. ”

“ We wish they would go out and view the negro in all the blazonry of his idleness, his pride, his ingratitude, contemptuously sneering at the industry of that race which made him free, and then come home and teach the memorable lesson of their experience to the fanatics who have perverted him into what he is. ”

“ The constant tendency in a Republic is to remove all constitutional checks intended for the security of individual rights, and reduce everything to the rule of the majority. It is obvious that the Senate of the United States and the Supreme Court, though intended as checks upon popular impulse and outbreaks, are yet but very imperfect barriers when opposed to what is termed the will of the people. It requires but a few years to change the political character of the Senate so that it shall reflect the prevailing sentiments of the day, and the same is true of the Supreme Court. ”

“ All such interference is a positive injury to the slave, and insulting to those with whom we have formed a copartnership, and with whom we must live as one family, so long as we continue to be a free people.
One who has a true respect for the colored man and a just regard for his interests, will not, I think, wish to see him placed in a false position, such as he occupies in the free States, hanging for a short time upon the skirts of a community which disowns him, and then sinking into the grave leaving no trace behind. ”

“ We have known no real evils, no invasion from without, or civil war within, and for want of any real danger we conjure up those that are imaginary. We torment ourselves with evils which have no existence but in our own brain. ”

“ No attempt, however humble, to throw light on a subject of such momentous importance should be discouraged, and I cannot therefore feel that any apology is due from me for laying before the community some considerations which may present the subject, to many, in a somewhat new light. If it is true that the two races can never co-exist, in a state of freedom, it is a truth of the utmost importance, and should, therefore, be fully known and understood by all. ”

“ Liberty has been in all ages of the world a most fruitful theme for the poet and the orator, and still its true nature and conditions are but imperfectly understood. Constitutional liberty, such as that of England and the United States, is possible only to a race that has a physical temperament that fits it for self-control or self-government, and to such a race only is it a blessing. But few such races have been known in history. One of them was the Grecian, and afterwards the Roman, but both became degenerated, and lost the capacity of self-government. ”

“ As lovers of their race how can they wish to see it occupy its present position in the free States? If they would improve its condition, why not lead out a colony to its native land, where it can live and not die, where it can be relieved from the destroying influence of the Anglo-Saxon, and stand up on its own [Pg 13] ground, conscious of no superior, feeling its own dignity, and with ample opportunity for the development of all the faculties with which it has been endowed. ”

“ Should he, in the course of centuries, become changed in his physical and mental constitution, he will find, necessarily, a government that corresponds to the progress he has made. Governments are but the agents and representatives of the people. They reflect very nearly the condition of the governed, and change to meet the changes of those they represent. No mortal power can prevent any people from taking and enjoying that degree of freedom they are capable of enjoying, and which would, therefore, contribute to their happiness. ”

“ The scene that has been enacted at Harper's Ferry will perhaps have the effect to open the eyes of the nation, so that they can see fully the yawning gulf, the brink of which they have at last reached, and lead them to examine the ground on which they stand; inquire what they have been doing, and what good cause can be served by a course of action which has led to such fatal results. Many lives have been sacrificed. A whole family has been ruined, and an old man has been led out to suffer the last and most terrible infliction of the law. ”

“ From some of our Western States the colored man has been entirely excluded. This is a wise provision, and a merciful one, to the blacks, who come into the free States only to drag out a few years in some menial employment, and then disappear with their families, if they have any, leaving no trace behind. If history and experience teach us anything, it is this, that two races constituted like the Anglo-Saxon and the African, can never co-exist in a state of equality, which means competition. ”

“ My sympathies are with the latter as well as the former, and I cannot wish to see our swelling, aggressive, Northern Anglo-Saxon tide, overflowing the Southern States, sweeping away perhaps the most conservative and useful element in our republican system, and at the same time utterly destroying in its course that helpless race which, in the providence of God, has been cast upon our shores. There is room enough for us all to live together in peace and harmony. The two races can co-exist in their present relative condition, but in no other way. ”

“ Then comes a satiety of blood, then a re-action, and then a state of things too often far worse than the first. Our own city of New York is considered by many to have become incapable of intelligent self-government, and to exhibit those evils which, especially under a government like our own, flow from the collection of a very large population at one point. A sparse and widely scattered population, which is also by necessity highly consecutive, may supply the very check we most need and which is not to be found in paper constitutions, courts or senates. ”

“ Such, I suppose, to be the immutable law of Providence, regulating the intercourse of those races which he has made, and given to one a white skin, and to the other a dark one. The Creator of all things could, doubtless, have made all white, or all black, but, for some purpose which we cannot fathom, he has chosen not to do so. He has created some races near akin to each other, and some entirely incompatible and repugnant, and it is not for us to say that he has done wrong. ”

“ If the theory of human liberty, which I have thus so briefly and imperfectly suggested, is the true one, and is supported by the facts of history, then it will furnish us with a key to unlock some of those hard problems in human life and destiny which have so puzzled mankind, and which have resisted all attempts at solution. ”

“ On the other hand, where there exists the least political freedom, we find the largest social liberty, as though one was incompatible with the other, which is probably the case, and for the reason that man must be governed to a certain extent in some way, and if he becomes politically more free, he becomes by necessity, socially, more enslaved. ”

“ An Italian Republic exists only in the dreams of Mazzini and Garibaldi, and yet if the sum of human happiness could be measured, there may be as much happiness in Italy, and perhaps more than is to be found in the two nations that are able to live under a constitutional government. ”

“ We cannot find any sympathy for those who would try, in the United States, the plan of a half-caste Republic, and we trust that the Federal Government and the right-thinking part of the community will protect the South from the repetition of such outrages as that at Harper's Ferry.
Our own race is boastful as well as intolerant and aggressive. This is especially true of the New England type, and hence it is that we are prone to regard ourselves in many, if not all respects, superior to the people of the South. ”

“ A nation may be educated to excel in all the arts and all the sciences, in oratory, philosophy, poetry, music, and painting, but not in the art of self-government, which implies a natural gift bestowed upon a very small portion of the human race. To judge of a people in this respect we must also [Pg 6] witness their capacity at home, and not be deceived by what happens to individuals or small communities when thrown into the midst of a self-controlling or self-governing race. ”

“ What would be the fate of the slave is as certain as is the fate of the North American Indian, the difference being that the Indian flies from civilization, which destroys him, while the imitative and mild-tempered African cling-to civilization which as certainly destroys him. ”

“ In Jamaica, the English Government have troops to protect the freed slaves from the encroachments of their old masters; but there it is stated, on the authority of the London Times, that the blacks are not only falling below the point of civilization attained during their servitude, but in many cases actually returning to their native barbarism, and the worship of idols. We have no such standing army here, but the slave, when free, must be left to the tender mercies of his former master. ”

“ We come from the same stock and the same northern hive, but have pursued different courses, and have not now the same blood in our veins. One race takes naturally to politics, for which it has an aptitude and capacity, the other as naturally to music and painting, to science and philosophy. ”

“ So long as the inferior race is in a dependent condition, and can claim support and protection from the white, it remains, with rare exceptions, contented and happy, the great burden of such a relation falling, in fact, upon the master, and not upon the slave. The moment that relation is changed, the negro thrown upon his own resources, and exposed to the withering and blasting effects of that ineradicable antipathy which exists towards all of African descent, that moment his fate is sealed ”

“ The freed West India slave will not till the soil for wages; the free son of the ex-slave is as obstinate as his sire. He will not cultivate lands which he has not bought for his own. Yams, mangoes, and plantains—these satisfy his wants; he cares not for yours. ”

“ We wish, too, they would watch him while, with a hide thicker than that of a hippopotamus, and a body to which fervid heat is a comfort rather than an annoyance, he droningly lounges over the prescribed task on which the intrepid Englishman, uninured to the burning sun, consumes his impatient energy, and too often sacrifices his life. ”

“ The diversities and repulsions of race which have been ordained, no doubt, for some wise purpose, are intended, perhaps, only for this state of existence. Another life may present a new order of things in which no such distinctions exist. ”

“ They should have informed us what is to become of those millions, suddenly let loose from restraint and thrown upon their own resources, no longer to be protected by the white race, but to be met by competition, by undying prejudice, extreme social hardship, and the "irrepressible conflict" of incompatible races. ”

“ Such a work would be worthy of the best intellect and the highest powers that have been bestowed on either black or white; but those of the colored race who are content with delivering anti-slavery lectures, or writing for anti-slavery papers, so far from elevating their race are engaged in a work which can end only in ruin, to the blacks certainly, in the loss of life and entire extinction, and to the whites in the loss it may be of a Union which no art can restore to its original beauty and perfection when once destroyed. ”

“ The present English race is the work of centuries, and contains the blood of Saxons, Danes, and Normans, blended in due proportion for the production of a certain result, and such a result as can nowhere else be witnessed. ”

“ One prominent cause for such difference is, no doubt, to be found in the fact that, while we, at the North, live in towns and cities where men are in a constant state of action and reaction upon each other, and the masses can be suddenly and extensively roused and excited, the Southern Planters live remote from each other, and, in many cases, in almost entire seclusion. Such a population is less in danger from these moral epidemics that from time to time sweep over communities, because it is sparse, and therefore not so much exposed to exciting causes ”