NOTICE

COM. STOCKTON'S LETTER

SLAVERY QUESTION;

OR,

A PLEA FOR TOLERATION.

PHILADELPHIA: 1850.

PHILADELPHIA :
T. K. AND P. 6. COLLINS, PRINTERS.

NOTICE

OF

C0MM0D0EE STOCKTON'S LETTER.

Daniel, Webster, in giving to the country
his profound speech upon the great question
of slavery, during the present session of Con
gress, has made us grateful for more than the
effort of his own powerful mind; for, as a
consequence, we have read with delight,
through his instrumentality, the " Reply" of
Commodore Stockton, whose opinions Mr.
Webster has sought " as an old friend" and
" a very competent judge, who, being out of
the strife of politics, his judgment was not
likely to be biased" says the distinguished
Senator. We conceive it to be no ordinary
compliment that a great man should thus

4
seek the opinion of another respecting a past
action, and more especially in political life.
How far the reply of Com. Stockton has justi
fied the confidence of his eminent friend, we
should be glad to have every man, particu
larly here in the Middle and Eastern States,
satisfy himself by reading the pamphlet.
Meanwhile, we claim the privilege of express
ing our own thoughts of this modest little
brochure of twenty-three pages, where we
think will be discovered calm, original, and
philosophical views of the great vexed ques
tion now occupying the Senate, and destined
to agitate our political existence, it is feared,
until wisely disposed of.
We are. especially struck with that portion
of Commodore Stockton*s " Reply," as being
full of just and wholesome thought and ori
ginality, wherein he refers to the condition
of Africa and her ill-fated "race of three
hundred millions of beings that scarcely can

be termed human." He assumes that the
three millions of Africans existing here under
a free and enlightened government, even in a
state of slavery, may be destined to regenerate
their Fatherland in time to come— that "the
hand of Providence seems to be clearly point
ing to an ultimate design in all this arrange
ment of things." Such an assumption betrays
the humility and dependence of a Christian
scholar rather than the daring of his country's
champion, and the argument justly inculcates
patient reliance upon the wisdom of an Om
nipotent and all-seeing God.
May we not derive some additional force
for this view of the subject in the very origin
or introduction of slavery into our country?
Not merely in the act of Great Britain, while
her colony, but in the scheme of Bartholomew
de las Casas, who, in the early part of the six
teenth century, persuaded his sovereign,
Charles the Fifth, to sanction the purchase of

negroes from the Portuguese in Africa, to
supply the planters of the Spanish colonies
with laborers. This was the act of a pious
prelate, a measure confided, as it were, by
Providence, to a high servant of the church,
a holy man of wisdom and goodness, whose
whole life was devoted to the well-being of
his fellows ; and who especially exhibited his
benevolence, we are told by his historians on
the conquest of Cuba, when " he distinguished
himself by his humane conduct towards the
oppressed natives, of whom he became, in a
manner, the patron, and set at liberty the
Indians who had fallen to his share in the
division." This same las Casas, be it remembered,
sailed with Columbus in his first voyage to
the West Indies, and also on his second to
Hispaniola ; he was, therefore, not only some
what instrumental in the discovery of our
country, but the man through whose agency

her destinies have been so seriously influenced
to the present day, we do not determine
whether for good or evil, by his device of the
slave trade. Who shall dare explain the
mysterious coincidence, not to say Providen
tial arrangement, by which a good and en
lightened servant of the church was thus
permitted to be at once the fortunate com
panion of Columbus when he discovered
America, and the originator of slavery within
her broad domains. By the association, there
would almost seem to be something sacred in
the very source from which this so-much
abused business of slavery has come to us ; and
if we should speak from our own observation
of its practical character among worthy men
at the South, it would need no effort of fancy
to give to it all the sanctity that is identified
with the exercise of kindnesses — with the
strong extending protection to the weak — the

8
higher order of intelligence guiding and sup
porting the naturally feeble and dependent.
Las Casas, as a scholar and a good priest,
both understood and obeyed the Divine Law ;
he was familiar, no doubt, with the passage
in the 25th chapter of Leviticus, which was
quoted and most forcibly impressed upon our
mind in the eloquent speech of Senator
Badger, of North Carolina, during the present
session of Congress. We shall be excused
for reviving it here, as a sacred text upon
which few can hope to dwell, as did the good
and gifted Senator just named : —
" Both thy bondsmen and thy bondsmaids,
which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen
that are round about you ; of them shall ye
buy bondsmen and bondsmaids. Moreover,
of the children of the strangers that do sojourn
among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their
families that are with you, which they begat
in your land ; and they shall be your posses-

sion. And ye shall take them as an inherit
ance for your children after you, to inherit
them for a possession; they shall be your
bondsmen forever; but over your brethren,
the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one
over another with rigor."
"This (said Mr. Badger) is among the
many direct, positive, authoritative approvals
by God himself of the institution of slavery,
existing at the time of the. Jewish theocracy.
It is not a mere toleration, a mere forbearance
to prohibit, but an express permission to the
Israelites, whom He condescended to govern
in the stead of a human ruler, to purchase of
the surrounding nations and of strangers
among them slaves, and to hold them as an
inheritance forever "
The scheme of las Casas, we may presume,
was not the sudden, thoughtless expedient of
a speculator in human affairs, and does not
deserve even the stigma of " a singular incon-

10
sistency" given to it by one of his biographers.
It was, on the contrary, both consonant with
his object and efforts to do good, spread
through the many years of a very long life,
and with his study of the Holy Scriptures.
Commodore Stockton justly states that —
" Here he (the African) is in a civilized and
Christian country ; he has more opportunities
of enlightenment than he would have had in
Africa ; he is, as a general rule, treated with
kindness ; he is protected from want in sick
ness and old age ; and is, on the whole, better
off, safer, happier, than he would have been in
his native country."
A distinguished man, who has been a close
observer of this African race, and who has
thought deeply as well as written eloquently
upon the subject, states that if you would
seek to find the negro (speaking plurally) in
his happiest condition on earth, you must
look for him as a slave in our Southern States ;

11
and happiness being both the great aim of
life and the best mode of improving it, we
think that as a question of morality or phi-*
lanthropy there is less occasion to commi
serate the slave than the owner, who has
the trouble and responsibility of his well
being. With reference to the theories of per
sonal freedom, of which we have heard so
much talk, we look around us in vain to see
them in practice among men of any kind or
color ; the reciprocal dependencies and obli
gations of life (not altogether omitting the
tricks of politicians and legislators, and the
cheats practiced even at the polls) bind us
down slavishly to the views and customs of
others who get power into their hands; and
the colored population of the South, while
undisturbed by doctrines which they scarcely
comprehend, come fairly under the maxim of
Doctor Johnson, that " even conveniences are
not missed where they never were enjoyed."

12
Political freedom, as determined by the
exercise of the elective franchise, seems to
have become of such doubtful value in these
degenerate times that some "good men and
true" are lukewarm in approaching the bal
lot-box. The absence of this poor privilege
can scarcely prove the presence of political or
social slavery ; and there is no such thing for
either black or white as escaping from the
slavery that is involved in a necessity for
labor, and reciprocal responsibilities.
The man who would honestly improve the
condition of the unhappy can find ampler
fields for his labor than amid the slaves of
our Southern States; he will find it among
the swelling numbers of the slaves of vice —
the slaves to low debasing habits — to idleness
and reckless villainy — to daring, lawless out
rage, growing out of intemperance and un
bridled passions, and the wicked, unrestrained
thirst for power and wealth. These gross,

13
glaring calamities, we grieve to say, stand
forth here at the North, in our cities, far in
advance of any evil associated with slavery at
the South, as dark elements of ruin to this
Union — ay, of dissolution of the worst kind.
" If toleration of slavery (says Commodore
Stockton) was a great national crime, when
and by whom was that crime committed ? At
the formation of the Government — at the
adoption of the Constitution — and by Wash
ington, Roger Sherman, Madison, Franklin,
Pinkney, &c."
But if in truth it was no crime, and is no
crime, we need not ask by whom or when
committed ; and the forcible reasoning of
Commodore Stockton proves satisfactorily
that it deserves not the name even of sin, so
far as we and our immediate ancestors are
concerned. He takes the good ground that
slavery in our country is a state of things for
which we are not responsible, for we had no

14
agency in creating it ; and as to the propriety
or policy of doing away with it, this is, we
agree, " a question of morals" and as such
we are much more disposed to discuss it than
if we believed it to be purely political. If
this question has become the subject of angry
disputation in our political assemblies, and a
cause of embittered feelings between the
North and the South, it is not from any ne
cessarily political aspect or difficulty existing
in the question itself; for we know that it
existed in all the original States, and that
each, where it does not now exist, has used
its prerogative of fostering or discarding it, at
such time as it judged proper, without the aid
or interference of its neighbors or the General
Government. "Toleration" is the very word that applies
to the past — to Washington and his associates :
by them it was practiced towards their fel
lows ; but it was not the toleration of slavery

15
merely, for this they maintained, cherished
and protected, and had they regarded it as a
crime or a sin, it would not even have been
tolerated. They desired, on the contrary, to
make a wise use of what was bequeathed to
them, and were unwilling to try the experi
ments of reckless men who would abolish
slavery, but could supply no plan for success
fully avoiding the calamities that must follow
such abolition. They could give nominal
freedom to the slave, but could they give him
food and protection — knowledge of self-go
vernment and self-preservation? — habits of
industry and usefulness ? These talkers about
the sin of slavery seem indifferent as to the
doubtful future — the uncertain consequences
of the disturbed elements they would set in
commotion ; results which, could they sud
denly accomplish their purpose, would bear
some analogy to an illustration which we also
borrow from Dr. Johnson — " To soften the ob-

16
durate, to convince the mistaken, to appease
the resentful, are worthy of a statesman ; but
it affords a legislator little self applause to
consider that where there was formerly an
insurrection there is now a wilderness."
"Change, to be blessed, must be calm and clear,
Thoughtful and pure, sinless and sound of mind ;
Else power unchained and change are things of fear ,
Let not the struggling to this truth be blind."
Reaching the point of " what is the duty
of the people of the non-slaveholding States
respecting slavery," Commodore Stockton
suggests three measures or remedies, in which
there breathes a correct spirit of toleration
and moderation worthy the united gratitude
of both North and South.
" 1st. A declarative act in such form as
may be deemed proper, that the Constitution
gives no poiver to the General Government
to act on the subject of domestic slavery,

17
either with respect to its existence in the
States, the Territories, or the District of
Columbia." "2d. The most efficient act that can be
framed to enforce the provisions of the Consti
tution in relation to fugitive slaves"
"3d. That California, in consideration of
the peculiar circumstances of her case, be ad
mitted without the approval or disapproval of
that part of her Constitution which relates to
slavery." In our sober judgment these do, in truth,
" put the solution of the difficulty on the eter
nal principle of right — the law of the Consti
tution." " To enforce the provisions of the
Constitution in relation to fugitive slaves" is
simply to be just, and to carry out the good
golden rule of doing unto others as we would
have others do unto us." Commodore Stock
ton's first remedial measure is, in fact, only to
declare that the Constitution should be the
3

18
law by which we are governed, and, after all,
California will do as she pleases, as all other
States have done; and if that part of her
Constitution relating to slavery should even
be rejected, as a condition, and at the period
of her admission into the Union, she will still
possess the right (and exercise it too) of
making a new Constitution to suit herself
in all respects, when she has become a mem
ber of the confederacy and an independent
State. And what good, may we not ask, is to
be effected, in such a contingency, by the
Wilmot Proviso (or anybody's proviso), a
dead-letter, a nonentity, shadows raked up
from the past, and as inapplicable to remedy
the substantial realities with which we now
have to deal as the cast-off slippers of Thomas
Jefferson, in which he may have penned the
original proviso.
" The North (says Commodore Stockton)
has settled this question easily — quietly.

19
Surely it is no great stretch of charity (or of
modesty, he might have added) for us to sup
pose that in due time the same thing will be
accomplished at the South. We of the North
have given no peculiar evidence of superior
goodness that we should suppose the South
not to be possessed of as much justice, charity,
and good sense, as ourselves."
When slavery was abolished, at different
periods, in each of the Northern States, it was
because the Northern people felt that the
time had come when they could abolish it;
and the very fact of driving the remnant of
slave population to the South, and confining
its limits to the climate where African labor
could least be dispensed with, has rendered
abolition there the more difficult. The post
ponement of the period at which the South
can as readily extinguish slavery is caused in
some measure by the very fact that it has
become the last refuge of the slave population

'20
in our country; for whilst the Southern
States afforded a profitable market to the
Northern owners, as well as a convenient and
agreeable home to the slaves, it was compara
tively easy for the Northern States to get rid
of them the moment they ceased to need, or
felt it was sinful to possess, such a popula
tion. When the South stands in the same
relative position to some other equally appro
priate and valuable home for their slaves, it
will, no doubt, follow the good example of
the North.
Let us look for an instant, in the way of
admonition, to the British West Indies, and
ask the abolitionists, what has England done
for the slave or the slave question by emanci
pating the blacks in those islands? The in
quiry may be best answered, perhaps, by an
English writer, and we therefore quote an
English opinion in advance of an English

21
folly, known by the name of the Emancipa
tion Act of Great Britain.
" Observe how the papers teem with the
misery of the lower classes in England, yet
this affects not the West India philanthropist.
You perceive not their voices raised in behalf
of their suffering countrymen. They pass
the beggar in the street ; they heed not the
cry of starvation at home ; but everywhere
raise petitions for emancipation ! or, in fact,
for the destruction of the property of others."
— "My ancestors embarked their capital in
these islands, upon the faith and promises of
the country, when opinions were very dif
ferent from what they are now, and I cannot
help myself. However, the time will come
when England will bitterly rue the having
listened to the suggestions and outcries of
these interested people."
" The more numerous public in England,
composed of those persons unable to think

22
for themselves, and in consequence led by
others, styling themselves philanthropists, but
appearing to have very Jesuitical ideas with
regard to truth. I have no hesitation in say
ing, that if philanthropy had not been found
to have been very profitable, it never would
have had so many votaries: true philanthropy,
like charity, begins at home.
" Let the country take our estates and ne
groes at a fair valuation, and we shall be
most happy to surrender them. If she frees
them without so doing, she is guilty of rob
bery and injustice, and infringes on the con
stitution of the country, which protects all
property, and will, of course, allow us to
decide upon our own measures."
England has rued the act, but in vain, and
any one who has opportunities of intercourse
with the British West Indies, since the period
of the abolition of slavery there, must be fa
miliar with the resulting dreadful condition

23
if not utter ruin to the islands. Such was
the effect in this instance of forcible abolition
of slaves against the will of their owners, as
to the time and manner of the act.
The want of Toleration in fegard to opin
ion is the sin of the North towards the South ;
and the presumption of attempting to legis
late for others, as well as for themselves,
seems to have caused all the trouble between
two parties who, in reality, have no cause of
quarrel. The proof of this exists in the past
experience of more than sixty years, showing
that both sections of the Union can prosper
and advance in all the great objects of civili
zation, each under the system which it has
chosen for itself, and without any necessary
interference with one another. As well
might the South make objections to and de
nounce the slavish, sickening system of task
work in the manufactories of New England,
and proclaim it sinful, as the North meddle

24
with the mode in which the field labor of the
South is carried on.
Again, Commodore Stockton says — "// is
far easier to condemn than to judge correctly
—far easier to* get into a passion about a sub
ject than to get into a comprehension of it."
It is much easier, and more common, to
complain of our neighbor than to do better
under the same circumstances ; but, in plain
truth, there is less real difference of opinion
than appears to exist ; selfishness is at the
bottom of all this meddling of the North with
the institution of slavery at the South. The
professed pious philanthropy that seems so
eager to eradicate the "national crime" of
slavery, and the sympathy that wreeps over
the supposed sufferings of the slave, are
mostly mere cloaks to hide some sordid sel
fish object of the individual from whom they
emanate ; we have seen instances of greater
tyranny towards blacks by abolitionists than
we ever saw from decent master to slave at

25
the South. The latter corrects the miscon
duct of his servant as he does the errors of his
children, with the prompt sense of justice,
and for their own good ; whilst the former,
with cold calculating selfishness, grinds them
almost to death by inches, as a return for the
imaginary benefit conferred in aiding him to
buy or steal his freedom.
We trust that a large edition of Commodore
Stockton's Reply to Mr. Webster has been
distributed through the land, and that copies
will fall into the hands of all thinking men —
that quiet, precious portion of our population,
who only speak or come forward when a
serious crisis is at hand. The selfish and de
signing, the mere politicians and fanatics,
may, for a time, threaten and disturb the
peaceful condition of the country, and use
the question of slavery, or any other great
topic of general interest, to accomplish their
own purposes; but when the right time
4

26
comes, the strong voice of the nation will
be heard in tones not to be disregarded or
misunderstood. Meanwhile, conventions may
be called in an eastern town " to determine
the rights of women," and another at London
to settle the peace of all mankind; and so too
may the recent black and white " American
Anti-Slavery Convention," at New York,
momentarily desecrate religion — abuse and
disgrace the freedom of speech, and the self-
elected great men and women who get up
these things may enjoy the glory of hearing
themselves talk, and even that of seeing them
selves in the newspapers — but as for dis
solving this Union, or altering and improving
the whole world, according to their views,
right off — such glorious undertakings unfor
tunately melt away like snow in spring time,
without the attendant good of swelling the
streams or moistening the earth.
PHILADELPHIAN.
Mat, 1850.

APPENDIX.

The writer of the foregoing brief paper
can but feel complimented beyond any hopes
he had entertained, by the demand for a
second edition of his little pamphlet. That
his fellow-citizens, whether of the North or
the South, should attribute such usefulness to
his effort, is an abundant motive for reprint
ing in better form his plain, disinterested
thoughts on the subject of slavery; and, with
out claiming to possess more philanthropy,
than should necessarily belong to a good
citizen, he takes occasion to state that he
never directly or indirectly owned a slave,
nor is he in any way connected with either
of the two parties, political or fanatical, that

2S
have disturbed the country by their quarrels
on the subject of slavery.
The law recently adopted by Congress,
which comprehends that for the arrest and
return of fugitive slaves, has been put in ope
ration since the period at which the review
of Commodore Stockton's letter on slavery
was published : and the writer will not resist
the disposition to notice the criminal excesses
that have been indulged in by a few mis
guided persons, not only by their manner of
condemning but of resisting the law. What
ever may be the defects of that law (and
gentlemen of intelligence and with characters
that forbid the suspicion of self-interest or
prejudice in their judgments, express the
opinion that it has some objections), still it
has become the law of the land by the solemn
votes, and Heaven knows, after sufficiently
long deliberations, in our National Assembly.
All admit it to be some improvement upon

29
the unjust absence of all law to protect the
rights of our Southern fellow-citizens, and its
true and fair application to the business of
justice between the parties concerned has not
yet been tried.
We say, then, let the law be properly
obeyed and carried out, and its defects will
be made practically self-evident by its opera
tion ; and future alterations or modifications
can the better be suggested in perfecting the
system, and the justice intended equally to
benefit him who claims his property and to
protect the freeman. The violent and un
lawful interference on the part of the aboli
tionists and other meddlers is calculated, on
the contrary, to do great mischief, and has
already produced ill effects both at the North
and the South : not only does it give a fresh
excuse to the turbulent of the South to keep
up or excite bad feelings which the law tends
in that section to soften and allay, but it has

30
had an injurious influence upon the whole
Colored population of the North, whether
free or otherwise. The abolitionists and the
worthless portion of the blacks in the south
part of our city have used the first occasion
of arrest under the new law to create an ex
citement that has reached even the quiet and
orderly colored people who form a useful and
worthy class as house servants in Philadel
phia : they are told idle and false tales about
the law and its operation, that any one of
them may be taken up and carried off as a
slave, without being allowed an opportunity
to prove that they are free, and other equally
absurd statements, until their ignorant minds
have become much excited by anticipated per
sonal injustice or violence, and they stand in
an irritable attitude of self-defence towards
every white man they meet, who is unknown
to them. Some of more timid natures are
unwilling to be sent out at night on ordinary

31
errands — or go armed, and quarrels and street
fights have been produced, and the peace of
the city not only disturbed, but actual indi
cations of riot and bloodshed have been ap
parent. We have newspaper accounts of somewhat
similar condition of feeling aud disturbances
from other parts of this State, and from Boston
and New York ; and we must pronounce as
worst of all the recent proceedings of the
"Pennsylvania State Abolition Convention,"
at West Chester, where the lawless speakers
seem to have been governed by no sense or
sense of propriety, and actuated by the worst
possible motives.
It should be clearly and fully understood
by the people of the South that such madmen
as those who addressed the meeting at West
Chester constitute an insignificant, a power
less gang of designing or popularity-seeking
men — are either unknown, or known only to

32
be pitied and despised, but who like the
harmless dogs will bark the loudest, and
alarm those that are as weak as themselves.
The thinking and respectable men of Penn
sylvania, while they lament such glaring out
rages against law and propriety by some of
their fellow-citizens, entertain no other feel
ing than one of scorn or contempt for the
imaginary power or influence of such indi
viduals as composed the meeting referred to.
Could this opinion or sentiment be equally
entertained at the South, there certainly
would be no existing belief there that it was
necessary to meet or counteract such supposed
Northern injustice or expression of feelings as
is conveyed to them, with all the insulting
parade of full newspaper reports, and which
are of course paid for by the interested — the
silly or insane promoters of disunion and dis
content between parties they wish to keep at
variance. The excesses of these pretended

33
friends of the slave should speak for them
selves to Southern as they do to Northern
intelligence, and be treated with the silent
contempt and indifference they deserve, and
certainly not be made the excuse for equally
disgraceful conduct there. It may be true
that a very small number of good and edu
cated men at the North honestly believe they
perform a religious or Christian duty by
taking an active part in the proceedings of
the abolitionists ; but these cannot quite give
countenance to the scurrilous and blasphemous
resolutions and speeches of such as Mr. Pills-
bury, of Boston. These men are not governed
by any knowledge of the law or the Constitu
tion, but by excitement of their own getting
up — passion, not reason — and a determination
like that of some persons who hate and con
demn an author because they are unacquainted
with his works, and will not become ac
quainted with them because they hate him.

34
And this is much the case with our noisy
Northern declaimers against slavery, the fu
gitive slave law, &c. ; they hate and condemn
the South because they do not know it, and
they will not know it because of their deep
prejudices. There is no other satisfactory
explanation to rational minds of so great and
sinful a waste of cultivated intellect as is ex
tended to the abolitionists, for instance, by a
distinguished clergyman of  , than to
believe him under the influence of a mourn
ful monomania ; a sort of romantic passion
for universal freedom, which, on that subject,
seems to have dethroned his reason. So pal
pable a deviation from the dictates of good
sense and good taste as are manifest in the
gentleman and scholar referred to, can only
be accounted for in a disturbed brain, and
especially when we see him pursuing a sooty
vapor, at the expense of peace and religious
harmony in his otherwise devoted congrega-

35
tion ; when we see him abandoning tried
friends, or driving them from him, by the
love of abolition, and a misplaced indulgence
in the expression of his unwelcome views
from the pulpit. It is sad to observe so well-
informed a gentleman mistake his true calling
and claim as a right and privilege of freedom,
an exercise of power by which he wishes to
enslave the minds of his hearers, to force into
his religious teachings irrelevant matter
which he knows is unacceptable to his con
gregation, and belongs to the political rather
than the theological school, while he is not a
professor in either. That golden rule, " Do
unto others as you would have others do unto
you," which receives, if possible, new force
and beauty from the eloquence of his lips,
should be applied by him to his southern fel
low-citizen, who asks simply to be allowed
the undisturbed possession of his inherited
and constitutional rights, and to his congre-

36
gation, who fairly discharge their duties and
obligations towards him.
We had some thoughts to offer in refer
ence to the natural and physiological capa
bilities of the negro, sustaining the belief of
his unfitness for freedom or self-government,
suggested by the great and interesting work,
" Crania Americana," of Dr. Samuel G. Mor
ton ; but we are fearful of extending these
appended remarks to unreasonable limits.
In the tables showing the relative size. of
the human brain in the various races of
men, the negro is found to be lowest in
standard except the Australian and Hottentot ;
and the learned writer in Ethnography declares
himself "in favor of the doctrine of primeval
diversities among men." From these and
other data, we think deductions are fairly to be
derived in favor of the views which we have
attempted to advocate, and beg merely to refer
the reader to the high authority just quoted.
November, 1850.