Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2)

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[Footnote t: This society assumed the name of "The Society for
the Colonization of the Blacks." See its annual reports; and more
particularly the fifteenth. See also the pamphlet, to which allusion has
already been made, entitled "Letters on the Colonization Society, and on
its probable Results," by Mr. Carey, Philadelphia, 1833.]

[Footnote u: This last regulation was laid down by the founders of
the settlement; they apprehended that a state of things might arise
in Africa similar to that which exists on the frontiers of the United
States, and that if the negroes, like the Indians, were brought into
collision with a people more enlightened than themselves, they would be
destroyed before they could be civilized.]

This is indeed a strange caprice of fortune. Two hundred years have now
elapsed since the inhabitants of Europe undertook to tear the negro
from his family and his home, in order to transport him to the shores of
North America; at the present day, the European settlers are engaged in
sending back the descendants of those very negroes to the Continent from
which they were originally taken; and the barbarous Africans have been
brought into contact with civilization in the midst of bondage, and have
become acquainted with free political institutions in slavery. Up to the
present time Africa has been closed against the arts and sciences of the
whites; but the inventions of Europe will perhaps penetrate into those
regions, now that they are introduced by Africans themselves. The
settlement of Liberia is founded upon a lofty and a most fruitful idea;
but whatever may be its results with regard to the Continent of Africa,
it can afford no remedy to the New World.

In twelve years the Colonization Society has transported 2,500 negroes
to Africa; in the same space of time about 700,000 blacks were born in
the United States. If the colony of Liberia were so situated as to be
able to receive thousands of new inhabitants every year, and if the
negroes were in a state to be sent thither with advantage; if the Union
were to supply the society with annual subsidies, *v and to transport
the negroes to Africa in the vessels of the State, it would still be
unable to counterpoise the natural increase of population amongst the
blacks; and as it could not remove as many men in a year as are born
upon its territory within the same space of time, it would fail in
suspending the growth of the evil which is daily increasing in the
States. *w The negro race will never leave those shores of the American
continent, to which it was brought by the passions and the vices of
Europeans; and it will not disappear from the New World as long as it
continues to exist. The inhabitants of the United States may retard
the calamities which they apprehend, but they cannot now destroy their
efficient cause.

[Footnote v: Nor would these be the only difficulties attendant upon
the undertaking; if the Union undertook to buy up the negroes now in
America, in order to transport them to Africa, the price of slaves,
increasing with their scarcity, would soon become enormous; and the
States of the North would never consent to expend such great sums for a
purpose which would procure such small advantages to themselves. If the
Union took possession of the slaves in the Southern States by force, or
at a rate determined by law, an insurmountable resistance would arise in
that part of the country. Both alternatives are equally impossible.]

[Footnote w: In 1830 there were in the United States 2,010,327 slaves
and 319,439 free blacks, in all 2,329,766 negroes: which formed about
one-fifth of the total population of the United States at that time.]

I am obliged to confess that I do not regard the abolition of slavery
as a means of warding off the struggle of the two races in the United
States. The negroes may long remain slaves without complaining; but if
they are once raised to the level of free men, they will soon revolt at
being deprived of all their civil rights; and as they cannot become the
equals of the whites, they will speedily declare themselves as enemies.
In the North everything contributed to facilitate the emancipation of
the slaves; and slavery was abolished, without placing the free negroes
in a position which could become formidable, since their number was too
small for them ever to claim the exercise of their rights. But such is
not the case in the South. The question of slavery was a question of
commerce and manufacture for the slave-owners in the North; for those of
the South, it is a question of life and death. God forbid that I should
seek to justify the principle of negro slavery, as has been done by
some American writers! But I only observe that all the countries which
formerly adopted that execrable principle are not equally able to
abandon it at the present time.

When I contemplate the condition of the South, I can only discover two
alternatives which may be adopted by the white inhabitants of those
States; viz., either to emancipate the negroes, and to intermingle
with them; or, remaining isolated from them, to keep them in a state of
slavery as long as possible. All intermediate measures seem to me likely
to terminate, and that shortly, in the most horrible of civil wars, and
perhaps in the extirpation of one or other of the two races. Such is the
view which the Americans of the South take of the question, and they
act consistently with it. As they are determined not to mingle with the
negroes, they refuse to emancipate them.


Not that the inhabitants of the South regard slavery as necessary to the
wealth of the planter, for on this point many of them agree with their
Northern countrymen in freely admitting that slavery is prejudicial to
their interest; but they are convinced that, however prejudicial it may
be, they hold their lives upon no other tenure. The instruction which is
now diffused in the South has convinced the inhabitants that slavery is
injurious to the slave-owner, but it has also shown them, more clearly
than before, that no means exist of getting rid of its bad consequences.
Hence arises a singular contrast; the more the utility of slavery is
contested, the more firmly is it established in the laws; and whilst
the principle of servitude is gradually abolished in the North, that
self-same principle gives rise to more and more rigorous consequences in
the South.

The legislation of the Southern States with regard to slaves, presents
at the present day such unparalleled atrocities as suffice to show how
radically the laws of humanity have been perverted, and to betray the
desperate position of the community in which that legislation has
been promulgated. The Americans of this portion of the Union have not,
indeed, augmented the hardships of slavery; they have, on the contrary,
bettered the physical condition of the slaves. The only means by which
the ancients maintained slavery were fetters and death; the Americans of
the South of the Union have discovered more intellectual securities
for the duration of their power. They have employed their despotism and
their violence against the human mind. In antiquity, precautions were
taken to prevent the slave from breaking his chains; at the present day
measures are adopted to deprive him even of the desire of freedom. The
ancients kept the bodies of their slaves in bondage, but they placed
no restraint upon the mind and no check upon education; and they
acted consistently with their established principle, since a natural
termination of slavery then existed, and one day or other the slave
might be set free, and become the equal of his master. But the Americans
of the South, who do not admit that the negroes can ever be commingled
with themselves, have forbidden them to be taught to read or to write,
under severe penalties; and as they will not raise them to their own
level, they sink them as nearly as possible to that of the brutes.

The hope of liberty had always been allowed to the slave to cheer the
hardships of his condition. But the Americans of the South are well
aware that emancipation cannot but be dangerous, when the freed man can
never be assimilated to his former master. To give a man his freedom,
and to leave him in wretchedness and ignominy, is nothing less than to
prepare a future chief for a revolt of the slaves. Moreover, it has long
been remarked that the presence of a free negro vaguely agitates the
minds of his less fortunate brethren, and conveys to them a dim notion
of their rights. The Americans of the South have consequently taken
measures to prevent slave-owners from emancipating their slaves in most
cases; not indeed by a positive prohibition, but by subjecting that step
to various forms which it is difficult to comply with. I happened
to meet with an old man, in the South of the Union, who had lived in
illicit intercourse with one of his negresses, and had had several
children by her, who were born the slaves of their father. He had indeed
frequently thought of bequeathing to them at least their liberty; but
years had elapsed without his being able to surmount the legal obstacles
to their emancipation, and in the mean while his old age was come, and
he was about to die. He pictured to himself his sons dragged from market
to market, and passing from the authority of a parent to the rod of
the stranger, until these horrid anticipations worked his expiring
imagination into frenzy. When I saw him he was a prey to all the anguish
of despair, and he made me feel how awful is the retribution of nature
upon those who have broken her laws.

These evils are unquestionably great; but they are the necessary and
foreseen consequence of the very principle of modern slavery. When the
Europeans chose their slaves from a race differing from their own, which
many of them considered as inferior to the other races of mankind,
and which they all repelled with horror from any notion of intimate
connection, they must have believed that slavery would last forever;
since there is no intermediate state which can be durable between the
excessive inequality produced by servitude and the complete equality
which originates in independence. The Europeans did imperfectly feel
this truth, but without acknowledging it even to themselves. Whenever
they have had to do with negroes, their conduct has either been dictated
by their interest and their pride, or by their compassion. They first
violated every right of humanity by their treatment of the negro
and they afterwards informed him that those rights were precious and
inviolable. They affected to open their ranks to the slaves, but the
negroes who attempted to penetrate into the community were driven back
with scorn; and they have incautiously and involuntarily been led to
admit of freedom instead of slavery, without having the courage to be
wholly iniquitous, or wholly just.

If it be impossible to anticipate a period at which the Americans of the
South will mingle their blood with that of the negroes, can they allow
their slaves to become free without compromising their own security? And
if they are obliged to keep that race in bondage in order to save their
own families, may they not be excused for availing themselves of the
means best adapted to that end? The events which are taking place in
the Southern States of the Union appear to me to be at once the most
horrible and the most natural results of slavery. When I see the order
of nature overthrown, and when I hear the cry of humanity in its vain
struggle against the laws, my indignation does not light upon the men of
our own time who are the instruments of these outrages; but I reserve
my execration for those who, after a thousand years of freedom, brought
back slavery into the world once more.

Whatever may be the efforts of the Americans of the South to maintain
slavery, they will not always succeed. Slavery, which is now confined to
a single tract of the civilized earth, which is attacked by Christianity
as unjust, and by political economy as prejudicial; and which is now
contrasted with democratic liberties and the information of our age,
cannot survive. By the choice of the master, or by the will of the
slave, it will cease; and in either case great calamities may be
expected to ensue. If liberty be refused to the negroes of the South,
they will in the end seize it for themselves by force; if it be given,
they will abuse it ere long. *x

[Footnote x: [This chapter is no longer applicable to the condition of
the negro race in the United States, since the abolition of slavery
was the result, though not the object, of the great Civil War, and the
negroes have been raised to the condition not only of freedmen, but of
citizens; and in some States they exercise a preponderating political
power by reason of their numerical majority. Thus, in South Carolina
there were in 1870, 289,667 whites and 415,814 blacks. But the
emancipation of the slaves has not solved the problem, how two races so
different and so hostile are to live together in peace in one country on
equal terms. That problem is as difficult, perhaps more difficult than
ever; and to this difficulty the author's remarks are still perfectly
applicable.]]




Chapter XVIII: Future Condition Of Three Races--Part VI

What Are The Chances In Favor Of The Duration Of The American Union, And
What Dangers Threaten It *y

[Footnote y: [This chapter is one of the most curious and interesting
portions of the work, because it embraces almost all the constitutional
and social questions which were raised by the great secession of the
South and decided by the results of the Civil War. But it must be
confessed that the sagacity of the author is sometimes at fault in these
speculations, and did not save him from considerable errors, which the
course of events has since made apparent. He held that "the legislators
of the Constitution of 1789 were not appointed to constitute the
government of a single people, but to regulate the association of
several States; that the Union was formed by the voluntary agreement
of the States, and in uniting together they have not forfeited their
nationality, nor have they been reduced to the condition of one and the
same people." Whence he inferred that "if one of the States chose to
withdraw its name from the contract, it would be difficult to disprove
its right of doing so; and that the Federal Government would have no
means of maintaining its claims directly, either by force or by right."
This is the Southern theory of the Constitution, and the whole case of
the South in favor of secession. To many Europeans, and to some
American (Northern) jurists, this view appeared to be sound; but it was
vigorously resisted by the North, and crushed by force of arms.

The author of this book was mistaken in supposing that the "Union was a
vast body which presents no definite object to patriotic feeling." When
the day of trial came, millions of men were ready to lay down their
lives for it. He was also mistaken in supposing that the Federal
Executive is so weak that it requires the free consent of the governed
to enable it to subsist, and that it would be defeated in a struggle
to maintain the Union against one or more separate States. In 1861 nine
States, with a population of 8,753,000, seceded, and maintained for four
years a resolute but unequal contest for independence, but they were
defeated.

Lastly, the author was mistaken in supposing that a community of
interests would always prevail between North and South sufficiently
powerful to bind them together. He overlooked the influence which the
question of slavery must have on the Union the moment that the majority
of the people of the North declared against it. In 1831, when the author
visited America, the anti-slavery agitation had scarcely begun; and the
fact of Southern slavery was accepted by men of all parties, even in the
States where there were no slaves: and that was unquestionably the view
taken by all the States and by all American statesmen at the time of the
adoption of the Constitution, in 1789. But in the course of thirty years
a great change took place, and the North refused to perpetuate what had
become the "peculiar institution" of the South, especially as it gave
the South a species of aristocratic preponderance. The result was the
ratification, in December, 1865, of the celebrated 13th article or
amendment of the Constitution, which declared that "neither slavery nor
involuntary servitude--except as a punishment for crime--shall exist
within the United States." To which was soon afterwards added the 15th
article, "The right of citizens to vote shall not be denied or abridged
by the United States, or by any State, on account of race, color, or
previous servitude." The emancipation of several millions of negro
slaves without compensation, and the transfer to them of political
preponderance in the States in which they outnumber the white
population, were acts of the North totally opposed to the interests
of the South, and which could only have been carried into effect by
conquest.--Translator's Note.]]

Reason for which the preponderating force lies in the States rather than
in the Union--The Union will only last as long as all the States choose
to belong to it--Causes which tend to keep them united--Utility of
the Union to resist foreign enemies, and to prevent the existence
of foreigners in America--No natural barriers between the several
States--No conflicting interests to divide them--Reciprocal interests
of the Northern, Southern, and Western States--Intellectual ties of
union--Uniformity of opinions--Dangers of the Union resulting from the
different characters and the passions of its citizens--Character of the
citizens in the South and in the North--The rapid growth of the
Union one of its greatest dangers--Progress of the population to the
Northwest--Power gravitates in the same direction--Passions originating
from sudden turns of fortune--Whether the existing Government of the
Union tends to gain strength, or to lose it--Various signs of its
decrease--Internal improvements--Waste lands--Indians--The Bank--The
Tariff--General Jackson.

The maintenance of the existing institutions of the several States
depends in some measure upon the maintenance of the Union itself. It is
therefore important in the first instance to inquire into the probable
fate of the Union. One point may indeed be assumed at once: if
the present confederation were dissolved, it appears to me to be
incontestable that the States of which it is now composed would not
return to their original isolated condition, but that several unions
would then be formed in the place of one. It is not my intention to
inquire into the principles upon which these new unions would probably
be established, but merely to show what the causes are which may effect
the dismemberment of the existing confederation.

With this object I shall be obliged to retrace some of the steps which
I have already taken, and to revert to topics which I have before
discussed. I am aware that the reader may accuse me of repetition, but
the importance of the matter which still remains to be treated is my
excuse; I had rather say too much, than say too little to be thoroughly
understood, and I prefer injuring the author to slighting the subject.

The legislators who formed the Constitution of 1789 endeavored to confer
a distinct and preponderating authority upon the federal power. But they
were confined by the conditions of the task which they had undertaken
to perform. They were not appointed to constitute the government of a
single people, but to regulate the association of several States; and,
whatever their inclinations might be, they could not but divide the
exercise of sovereignty in the end.

In order to understand the consequences of this division, it is
necessary to make a short distinction between the affairs of the
Government. There are some objects which are national by their very
nature, that is to say, which affect the nation as a body, and can
only be intrusted to the man or the assembly of men who most completely
represent the entire nation. Amongst these may be reckoned war and
diplomacy. There are other objects which are provincial by their very
nature, that is to say, which only affect certain localities, and which
can only be properly treated in that locality. Such, for instance, is
the budget of a municipality. Lastly, there are certain objects of
a mixed nature, which are national inasmuch as they affect all the
citizens who compose the nation, and which are provincial inasmuch as
it is not necessary that the nation itself should provide for them all.
Such are the rights which regulate the civil and political condition of
the citizens. No society can exist without civil and political rights.
These rights therefore interest all the citizens alike; but it is not
always necessary to the existence and the prosperity of the nation that
these rights should be uniform, nor, consequently, that they should be
regulated by the central authority.

There are, then, two distinct categories of objects which are submitted
to the direction of the sovereign power; and these categories occur in
all well-constituted communities, whatever the basis of the political
constitution may otherwise be. Between these two extremes the objects
which I have termed mixed may be considered to lie. As these objects
are neither exclusively national nor entirely provincial, they may be
obtained by a national or by a provincial government, according to the
agreement of the contracting parties, without in any way impairing the
contract of association.

The sovereign power is usually formed by the union of separate
individuals, who compose a people; and individual powers or collective
forces, each representing a very small portion of the sovereign
authority, are the sole elements which are subjected to the general
Government of their choice. In this case the general Government is more
naturally called upon to regulate, not only those affairs which are
of essential national importance, but those which are of a more local
interest; and the local governments are reduced to that small share of
sovereign authority which is indispensable to their prosperity.

But sometimes the sovereign authority is composed of preorganized
political bodies, by virtue of circumstances anterior to their union;
and in this case the provincial governments assume the control, not only
of those affairs which more peculiarly belong to their province, but of
all, or of a part of the mixed affairs to which allusion has been made.
For the confederate nations which were independent sovereign States
before their union, and which still represent a very considerable share
of the sovereign power, have only consented to cede to the general
Government the exercise of those rights which are indispensable to the
Union.

When the national Government, independently of the prerogatives inherent
in its nature, is invested with the right of regulating the affairs
which relate partly to the general and partly to the local interests,
it possesses a preponderating influence. Not only are its own rights
extensive, but all the rights which it does not possess exist by its
sufferance, and it may be apprehended that the provincial governments
may be deprived of their natural and necessary prerogatives by its
influence.

When, on the other hand, the provincial governments are invested
with the power of regulating those same affairs of mixed interest, an
opposite tendency prevails in society. The preponderating force resides
in the province, not in the nation; and it may be apprehended that the
national Government may in the end be stripped of the privileges which
are necessary to its existence.

Independent nations have therefore a natural tendency to centralization,
and confederations to dismemberment.

It now only remains for us to apply these general principles to the
American Union. The several States were necessarily possessed of the
right of regulating all exclusively provincial affairs. Moreover these
same States retained the rights of determining the civil and political
competency of the citizens, or regulating the reciprocal relations of
the members of the community, and of dispensing justice; rights which
are of a general nature, but which do not necessarily appertain to the
national Government. We have shown that the Government of the Union is
invested with the power of acting in the name of the whole nation in
those cases in which the nation has to appear as a single and undivided
power; as, for instance, in foreign relations, and in offering a common
resistance to a common enemy; in short, in conducting those affairs
which I have styled exclusively national.

In this division of the rights of sovereignty, the share of the Union
seems at first sight to be more considerable than that of the States;
but a more attentive investigation shows it to be less so. The
undertakings of the Government of the Union are more vast, but their
influence is more rarely felt. Those of the provincial governments are
comparatively small, but they are incessant, and they serve to keep
alive the authority which they represent. The Government of the Union
watches the general interests of the country; but the general interests
of a people have a very questionable influence upon individual
happiness, whilst provincial interests produce a most immediate effect
upon the welfare of the inhabitants. The Union secures the independence
and the greatness of the nation, which do not immediately affect private
citizens; but the several States maintain the liberty, regulate the
rights, protect the fortune, and secure the life and the whole future
prosperity of every citizen.