Emancipist

“ We have seen how successive governors sought to bring the emancipists forward, and the heartburnings it occasioned. Their efforts were doubtless supported by the wealth and importance of many of the emancipist class; but it was on this account that the antagonism exhibited by the free population was the more unvarying and bitter. Many of the respectable inhabitants had been outstripped in the race for fortune by men who had arrived in the colony bearing the felon's brand; and the free settlers felt that in fighting against the pretensions of these ex-convicts they were fighting for very life. ”

“ Although there are many honourable exceptions to the general rule, yet it would seem to be a general rule that roguery and industry are usually connected among them; and that where an emancipist is less inclined to be dishonest, he is more inclined to be idle and improvident; while it often occurs that both faults are found together in one person. Of course, it would be vain to hope that all convicts, or even the majority, perhaps, should become completely reformed ”

“ It was not easy at all times for the free settlers to make a distinction among emancipists, and so they came to a quick conclusion by denouncing all. However, that state of society has all passed away; convicts, emancipists, and free settlers of the first quarter of this century are all dead and gone now, with, possibly, a few exceptions. ”

“ But the discussions aroused by these attempts made at the desire and with the support of the Governor to force the emancipists upon the company of the officers, made their social exclusion more rigid than ever. The feeling of antagonism, though manifested only by exclusion from social gatherings, was a factor to be reckoned with in all the affairs of the Colony, and was especially to be regretted at this moment when the colonists as a whole were looking forward to the end of military Government and to some diffusion of political power. ”

“ This new colony was to provide an outlet for the overplus in labour, which at that time in Van Diemen's Land choked up every avenue to employment. "It is founded"—to use Mr. Gladstone's own words—"as a receptacle for convicts who, by pardon or lapse of time, have regained their freedom, but who may be unable to find elsewhere an effective demand for their services." It was to be a colony of emancipists. The earliest settlers would be exiles sent out from England, with whose assistance the governor of the new colony was to prepare for the arrival of the rest from Van Diemen's Land. ”

“ They are yearning for emancipation from the galling yoke of wage-slavery, and with all the power of their minds, all the strength of their bodies and all the passion of their souls they are crusading against the ignorance of their fellow-workers and the prejudice of the people. ”

“ Putting on one side the ticket-of-leave men,—who were still really convicts, though for the moment and during good behaviour masters of themselves,—and not including emancipists, who though, to all intents and purposes, men free as air, still carried a class-brand which generations only could efface—there were, in addition to the servants assigned to private individuals, a large body of convicts retained in the hands of the government of the colony. ”

“ I regard emancipation as the only possible method of putting a stop to it; for when both races are left to their own free choice the practice ceases. It has always been so and will be no different hereafter. ”

“ The colonial administration has found even less satisfaction in the emancipists than in the convicts still under restraint. The former are a great and increasing body, for whom work cannot easily be found. The hope that the labour markets of the colony would absorb a great proportion soon proved illusory. For some time past the free colonists, by no means a numerous class, have declined to employ emancipists, declaring that while they claimed the free man's wages they would not give the free man's work. ”

“ They came and went, and amused themselves after working hours, so that Sydney and all the large towns were hotbeds of vice and immorality. The masters as a rule made no attempt to watch over their charges; many of them were absolutely unfitted to do so, being themselves of low character, “emancipists” frequently, old convicts conditionally pardoned or who had finished their terms. No effort was made to prevent the assignment of convicts to improper persons; every applicant got what he wanted, even though his own character would not bear inspection. ”

“ It is noticeable that no one, with the exception perhaps of Marsden, thought it would be possible to exclude ex-convicts altogether. Field, for example, thought the danger of petty juries would lie in the fact that emancipists would be legally entitled to sit upon them, and that jury trial would therefore be the means of still further embittering feeling between themselves and the free population. [57]
It is probable that the military officers who acted as judges and jury in the Criminal Court were as impartial and as intelligent as an average English jury. ”

“ The most horrible visions seemed to present themselves to the minds of people who, one would suppose, ought to have known better. Many educated and, otherwise, sensible persons appeared to believe that emancipation meant social equality. ”

“ All ideas of right and wrong are confounded in these words: emancipate property, emancipate a horse, or an ox, would not only be unmeaning, but a ludicrous expression. To emancipate is to set free from slavery. ”

“ The doctrine of emancipation preached to the wage-workers alone runs an awful risk of being accepted for what it offers them, for the sake of fleshpots, rather than for the human affection and social justice which it involves. ”

“ Yet even here I also became acquainted with some excellent people, both men and women, real Christians and true citizens of the world, who are silently labouring at the work of emancipation, wisely and effectually; assisting the slaves into the path of self-emancipation,—that is to say, giving opportunity to those slaves to acquire money, helping them to keep it, and encouraging them to industry and good conduct, with a view to their liberation at a certain time; in a few years perhaps, or it may be less, and afterwards giving them that freedom for which they have worked. ”

“ Today it means not only material emancipation, too; it comes as the summing up of all those lines of thought and action which for three hundred years have been making towards freedom; it means fullness of being, the free life. ”

“ Proprietors who dread emancipation! show to your people a little of that benevolence which so promptly subdues those who are unaccustomed to it, and you will find them docile and industrious as freemen. ”

“ Taking the fact of emancipation as fixed, and to be realized, and that there will here be a race of freedom rapidly rising civilization and enlightenment, we are confronted with the question— Is this country to be the ultimate home of this people ? ”

“ Among the many obstacles which have been brought to bear against emancipation, one of the most formidable has been the series of objections urged against it upon what has been supposed to be the slave's want of appreciation of liberty, and his ability to provide for himself in a state of freedom ”

“ History does not furnish an example of emancipation under conditions less friendly to the emancipated class than this American example. Liberty came to the freedmen of the United States not in mercy, but in wrath, not by moral choice but by military necessity, not by the generous action of the people among whom they were to live, and whose good-will was essential to the success of the measure, but by strangers, foreigners, invaders, trespassers, aliens, and enemies. ”

“ The truth that any one man—whatever his place in society, whatever the colour of his skin—has as much right as any other to be treated as an end and that no man was merely a means to the enjoyment or happiness or well-being of another, was the charter for the emancipation of slaves. ”

“ Managed in a modern style the emancipation of the slave's mind is the best way of preventing the emancipation of the slave. Teach him to worry about whether he wants to be free, and he will not free himself. ”

“ That free labor, its necessary consequence, is more productive, and more advantageous to the planter than slave labor.
In proof of the first proposition it is only necessary to state the undeniable fact that immediate emancipation, whether by an individual or a community, has in no instance been attended with violence and disorder on the part of the emancipated; but that on the contrary it has promoted cheerfulness, industry, and laudable ambition in the place of sullen discontent, indolence, and despair. ”

“ For while I am willing to have it known that every fibre of my soul is enlisted in the cause of emancipation, I would not have it thought that I am less capable than others of calmly and rationally contemplating the movement designed to accomplish that important and much desired end. ”

“ Do not refuse the offered emancipation, but 'if thou mayest be made free, use it rather.' Be not like the spiritless slaves, for whose servile choice the law provided, who had rather remain bond than go out free. ”

“ As usual, the emancipated slaves thought that every kind of prosperity, happiness, and well-being was to be the immediate result of their emancipation;—that no further self-sacrifice was needed;—that a millennium of universal cakes and ale had arrived;—and all troubles, at all events all troubles connected with the governing of the country, had been got rid of for ever. ”

“ Say, fellow citizens, will you palsy the hands of your friends and sicken their hearts, and gladden the souls of your enemies, by a base refusal to enter upon a career of glory which is now opening so propitiously before you? The genius of universal emancipation, bending from her lofty seat, invites you to accept the wreath of national independence. The voice of your friends, swelling upon the breeze, cries to you from afar—Raise your standard! Assert your independence! ”

“ I stand amazed at the rapid strides which your people have made since emancipation, at your industry, your acquisition of property and land, your zeal for education, your self-respecting but unresentful attitude toward those who formerly claimed to be your masters, your pathetic but manly appeal for just treatment and recognition. ”

“ In all this there may be much philanthropy, but there is certainly much error,—and with a view to determine where it lies, as well as to show what is the true road to emancipation, it is proposed to inquire what has been, in the various countries of the world, the course by which men have passed from poverty to wealth, from ignorance and barbarism to civilization, and from slavery to freedom. ”

“ Emancipation before the law, though it may be a right which man has no right to withhold, is to them little more than a mockery until they achieve emancipation in the minds and good will of the people--'the people,' did I say? ”

“ The majority are unable, and not even anxious, to attain this light-hearted social emancipation. For the majority, even though they are workers, the anciently subtle ties of the home are still, as they should be, an element of natural piety, and, also, as they should not be, clinging fetters which impede individuality and destroy personal initiative. ”

“ For myself I have never ceased to be grateful to the Divine Providence for the privilege of taking a part in that work.
And now for more than twenty years we have had a free country. No slave treads its soil. The anticipated dangerous consequences of complete emancipation have not been felt. The emancipated class, as a whole, have done wisely, and well under circumstances of peculiar difficulty. ”

“ We have only to reflect for a moment upon the situation in which these people found themselves when liberated: consider their ignorance, their poverty, their destitution, and their absolute dependence upon the very class by which they had been held in bondage for centuries, a class whose every sentiment was averse to their freedom, and we shall be prepared to marvel that they have under the circumstances done so well. ”

“ The emancipation of the slave, and the elevation of the free colored people, has claimed the greatest share of his time as a writer.
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The law of labor is equally binding on genius and mediocrity. The mind and body rarely visit this earth of ours so exactly fitted to each other, and so perfectly harmonizing together, as to rise without effort, and command in the affairs of men. ”

“ The sweeping revolution of the entire labor system of a large portion of our country and the advance of 4,000,000 people from a condition of servitude to that of citizenship, upon an equal footing with their former masters, could not occur without presenting problems of the gravest moment, to be dealt with by the emancipated race, by their former masters, and by the General Government, the author of the act of emancipation. ”

“ What is clearly wanted—and indeed is the next stage of human evolution in England and in all Western lands—is that the people should emancipate themselves from class-domination, class-glamour, and learn to act freely from their own initiative. ”

“ If I have been at all instrumental in checking the further extension of the practice of enslaving those intelligent and inoffensive creatures, and in preparing the way for the emancipation of all, it will be the proudest reflection and the greatest solace of my declining years. ”

“ That is good advice for any poor man, black or white. This picture of the signing of the Emancipation Act can commemorate all of which it is capable, only if the privilege of freedom be embraced as the opportunity of manly toil, and the occasion of all patient effort to become the equal of other men, not in external advantages and rights half so much as in capacity and character. ”

“ Now the slaves are emancipated, and we are all enfranchised, after struggling for existence, freedom and manhood—I feel thankful for having had the glorious privilege of laboring with others for the redemption of my race from oppression and thraldom; and I would prefer to-day to be penniless in the streets, rather than to have withheld a single hour's labor or a dollar from the sacred cause of liberty, justice, and humanity. ”