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such a measure? The recent scenes transacted in the French colonies in the West Indies are enough to make one shudder with the apprehension of realizing similar calamities in this country. Such probably would be the event of an attempt to smother those prejudices which have been cherished for a period of almost two centuries. Those who secretly favour, whilst they affect to regret, domestic slavery, contend that in abolishing it, we must also abolish that scion from it which I have denominated civil slavery. That there must be no distinction of rights; that the descendants of Africans, as men, have an equal claim to all civil rights, as the descendants of Europeans; and upon being delivered from the yoke of bondage have
fortunate difference of colour, and perhaps of faculty, is a powerful obstacle to the emancipation of these people. Among the Romans emancipation required but one effort. The slave, when made free, might mix with, without staining, the blood of his master. But with us a second is necessary, unknown to history.—See the passage at length, Notes on Virginia, page 252 to 265.
“In the present case, it is not only the slave who is beneath his master, it is the Negroe who is beneath the white man. No act of enfranchisement can efface this unfortunate distinction.”—Chatelleux’s Travels in America.
