The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade/Preface
PREFACE
This book is intended for general reading, and may also serve as a book of reference. It is an attempt to compile and present in one volume the historical records of slavery in ancient and modern times — the laws of Greece and Rome and the legislation of England and America upon the subject — and to exhibit some of its effects upon the destinies of nations. It is compiled from what are conceded to be authentic and reliable books, documents, and records. In looking up material for that portion of the book which treats of slavery in the nations of antiquity, the compiler found small encouragement among the historians. "There is no class so abject and despised upon which the fate of nations may not sometimes turn;" and it is strange that a system which pervaded and weakened, if it did not ruin, the republics of Greece and the empire of the Cæsars, should not be more frequently noticed by historical writers. They refer, only incidentally, to the existence of slavery. An insurrection or other remarkable event with which the slaves are connected, occasionally reminds the reader of history of the existence of a servile class. The historian of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire devotes but two pages to what he describes as "that unhappy condition of men who existed in every province and every family, exposed to the wanton rigor of despotism," and who, according to his own account, numbered, in the age of the Antonines, sixty millions! Yet "slavery was the chief and most direct cause of the ruin of the Roman Empire," if we may credit the assertions made in the legislature of Virginia shortly after an insurrection in that state. How few of the historians of England refer to the existence in that country of a system of unmitigated, hopeless, hereditary slavery. Yet it prevailed throughout England in Saxon and Norman times. In the time of the Heptarchy, slaves were an article of export. "Great numbers were exported, like cattle, from the British coasts." The Roman market was partially supplied with slaves from the shores of Britain. Pope Gregory the Great, struck with the blooming complexions and fair hair of some Saxon children in the slave market, sent over St. Augustine from Rome to convert the islanders to Christianity. In the time of Alfred, slaves were so numerous that their sale was regulated by law. As a general thing, however, feudalism strangled the old forms of slavery, and both disappeared in England in the advancing light of Christianity. The historians of the United States, also, with the exception of Hildreth, seldom refer to the subject of slavery. They perhaps imagine that they descend below the dignity of history if they treat of any thing but "battles and seiges, and the rise and fall of administrations." Yet the printed annals of congress, from the foundation of the government to the present time, are filled with controversies upon the ever prominent "slavery question"; and every important measure seems to have had a "slavery issue" involved in it.
Meantime, and while awaiting the advent of a regular "philosophical" historian of slavery, we present an imperfect, but, we trust, useful compilation. The greater part of the volume is devoted to the Political History of Slavery in the United States. The legislation of congress upon subjects embracing questions of slavery extension or prohibition, has been faithfully rendered from the record; and the arguments used on both sides of controverted questions have been impartially presented. The parliamentary history of the abolition of the African slave-trade has been made to occupy considerable space, chiefly in order to lay before the reader the views upon the subject of slavery entertained by that class of unrivaled statesmen which embraced the names of Pitt, Fox, Burke, and others not unknown to fame. The history of the legislation of our own country upon subjects in which slavery issues were involved, will also bring before the reader another array of eminent statesmen, with whose familiar names he is accustomed to associate the idea of intellectual power. Chapters upon slavery in Greece and Rome have been introduced into the book, as various opinions seem to prevail in regard to the forms, features, laws, extent and effects of ancient slavery. Some point with exultation to the prosperity of imperial Rome with her millions of slaves; others with equal exultation point to her decay as the work of the avenging spirit of slavery. Others, again, contend that slavery was confined to but a small portion of the empire, and had small effect upon its prosperity or adversity.
To gratify a class of readers to whom the relation of exciting incidents is of more interest than the details of legislative action, we have devoted a space to the abominations of the old legalized slave traffic, and to the increased horrors of the trade after it had been declared piracy by Christian nations. It is a fearful chapter of wrong, violence and crime.
"According to an enlightened philosophy," we quote from the Conversations Lexicon, "each human being retains inherently the right to his own person, and can neither sell himself, nor be legally bound by any act of aggression on his natural liberty. Slavery, therefore, can never be a legal relation. It rests entirely on force. The slave being treated as property, and not allowed legal rights, cannot be under legal obligations. Slavery is also inconsistent with the moral nature of man. Each man has an individual worth, significance, and responsibility; is bound to the work of self-improvement, and to labor in a sphere for which his capacity is adapted. To give up this individual liberty is to disqualify himself for fulfilling the great objects of his being. Hence, political societies which have made a considerable degree of advancement do not allow any one to resign his liberty any more than his life, to the pleasure of another. In fact, the great object of political institutions in civilized nations is to enable man to fulfill most perfectly the ends of his individual being. Christianity, moreover, lays down the doctrine of doing as we would be done by, as one of its fundamental maxims, which is wholly opposed to the idea of one man becoming the property of another. These two principles of mutual obligation, and the worth of the individual, were beyond the comprehension of the states of antiquity, but are now at the basis of morals, politics, and religion."