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Position and Treatment of Negroes 665 The Relative Position and Treatment of the Negroes The Abolitionists—Consistency of Their Labors george s. sawyer 1858 1. These truths are set forth in a striking light in the very learned and masterly opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States in the Dred Scott case. See 19 Hou. Rep. p. 408– 410. It is there decided that the descendants of African slaves are not citizens of the United States within the meaning of the Constitution, even though they be free. among the English people, that they could not live in the enjoyment of any social or civil privileges in England. In France they can never attain to the rights of citizens. The fundamental principles of our Federal and State governments place these privileges all beyond the reach of the negro in America. The Constitution of the United States and that of nearly all the States, say, that every free white male citizen, &c., shall be a duly qualified elector; and such only are eligible to any office of honor, profit, or trust, or to be admitted generally to civil functions, to seats in the churches, public schools, places of general assembly, or private circles of society; all intermarriages between the white and the black races is prohibited by law. This all goes to show that the negro race, by universal consent of the civilized world, are considered a separate and distinct race of beings, suited only to their own peculiar state and condition .1 Their freedom is but a name, an unmeaning sound; they are by nature totally incapacitated to enjoy the rights and privileges of freemen, except in secluded communities of their own kindred blood, which ever have been, and ever will be, sooner or later, when left to themselves, in a state of barbarism. Their condition among the whites is necessarily that of pupilage and dependence. Considerations of this kind first induced civilized nations to purchase them as slaves. Slavery . . . had its origin As the struggle over slavery and its position within the United States intensified, abolitionist statements concerning the evils of slavery were met with statements by Southerners—and also by some Northerners—defending the institution. George S. Sawyer, a Southern slaveholder and lawyer, compared his idyllic picture of slave life with a nightmare vision of non-slave societies —including Great Britain, the source of much antislavery writing. According to this so-called mud-sill theory, Northern industrial institutions subjected workers of whatever color to worse deprivations than slavery, particularly because Northern workers lacked a master whose own interest dictated that he look after theirs. Selections here are taken from Sawyer’s Southern Institutes , or, an inquiry into the Origin and Early prevalence of slavery and the Slave-trade: with an analysis of the laws, history, and government of the institution in the principal nations, ancient and modern, from the earliest ages down to the present time. With notes and comments in Defence of the southern institutions. The Relative Position and Treatment of the Negroes No government has ever existed in the civilized world that placed the black and the white man upon an equal footing as to all the rights and privileges of citizens. In their political and social condition, universally among the Caucasian race, the negro lives under many social and civil disabilities . Lord Mansfield said, in the decision of Sommersett’s case, that such was the odium that existed against them 666 prelude to war 2. Serve or Servare, to preserve, not slay their captives. Inst. Just. lib. i. t. 2. c. 3. 3. Wheat’s Elements of Inter. Law, p. 194. The slave trade is not prohibited by the code of nations; this principle of national law is still in force in Africa, and in all nations where it has not been abolished by municipal regulations. Op. cit. (in loco.), Case of Diana Stowell, 1 Dod. p. 95. 4. Africa and the American Flag, by Foote. in the stern yet merciful dictates of humanity; the very word from which they take their name in the Latin language , indicates the act of mercy that spared their lives.2 Slavery originated from the same cause, and existed by the same laws in Africa.3 This principle of national law that governed the whole ancient world, took effect there also; and thousands and millions of the hapless wretches who fell into the hands of their otherwise merciless captors, were by its benign in...

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