A Self-Evident Lie: Southern Slavery and the Threat to American Freedom

Introduction

• introduction • The Badge of Freedom? Three months before his death, benjamin Franklin stepped into the public spotlight for the final time. Although he had once published ads for slave sales, and had even owned a slave couple himself, beginning in the 1750s Franklin had gradually turned against the institution. As president of the Pennsylvania society for Promoting the Abolition of slavery, Franklin presented a formal petition to congress in February 1790, denouncing both the slave trade and slavery itself. “mankind are all formed by the same Almighty being,” it declared, “alike objects of his care, and equally designed for the enjoyment of happiness.” Therefore, congress had a solemn duty to grant liberty “to those unhappy men who alone in this land of freedom are degraded into perpetual bondage.”1 only fourteen years earlier, Americans had announced to the world that “all men are created equal.” Franklin’s reputation as an architect of that revolution was second only to George Washington’s. nevertheless, southern congressmen displayed unveiled contempt for Franklin and his petition. senator Pierce butler of south carolina castigated the society’s plan as a willful violation of the constitution. in the House of representatives , James Jackson of Georgia and William loughton smith of south carolina suggested that the eighty-four-year-old Franklin was no longer in his right mind. Jackson was particularly vehement in his defense of slavery, insisting on the floor of the House that the institution was divinely sanctioned and economically vital to the southern economy. As he had done in the past, Franklin decided to take his case to the public in the form of an anonymous parody. on march 23, 1790, a public 1 2 a self-evident lie letter appeared in the Federal Gazette under the signature “Historicus.” in a disinterested tone, Franklin observed that Jackson’s speech in congress bore a striking resemblance to a speech delivered a hundred years earlier by sidi mehemet ibrahim, a member of the divan of Algiers, in response to a petition condemning the enslavement of european christians. Assuming that Jackson had never read this speech, Franklin could not help but note “that men’s interests and intellects operate and are operated on with surprising similarity in all countries and climates, whenever they are under similar circumstances.”2 indeed, “the African’s” rationales for white slavery clearly presaged those invoked by Jackson and other southerners in favor of black slavery: if we forbear to make slaves of their people, who in this hot climate are to cultivate our lands? And is there not more compassion and favor due to us as mussulmen than to these christian dogs? . . . Who is to indemnify the masters for their loss? . . . And if we set our slaves free, what is to be done with them? . . . must we maintain them as beggars in our streets, or suffer our properties to be the prey of their pillage? For men accustomed to slavery will not work for a livelihood when not compelled. And what is there so pitiable in their present condition? Were they not slaves in their own countries? They have only exchanged one slavery for another and i may say a better; for here they are brought into a land where the sun of islamism gives forth its light, and shines in full splendor, and they have an opportunity of making themselves acquainted with the true doctrine, and thereby saving their immortal souls. [They are] too ignorant to establish a good government. While serving us, we take care to provide them with everything, and they are treated with humanity. The laborers in their own country are, as i am well informed, worse fed, lodged, and clothed. . . . Here their lives are in safety. As for those “religious mad bigots” with their “silly petitions,” it was pure foolishness to argue that slavery was “disallowed by the Alcoran!” Were not thetwoprecepts“masters,treatyourslaveswithkindness;slaves,serveyour masters with cheerfulness and fidelity” ample evidence to the contrary? it was well known, explained the African, that God had given the world “to his faithful mussulmen, who are to enjoy it of right as fast as they conquer it.”3 The stability and happiness of the nation could not be sacrificed simply to appease the demands of a few fanatics. such was the determination of Introduction 3 the divan of Algiers, which, according to Franklin, rejected the antislavery memorial. Following suit, congress announced that it lacked the authority...