Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/40

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THOUGHTS ON AMERICA.
27


race, … and his distingaishing characteristics are such as peculiarly mark him out for the situation which he occupies among us; …. the most remarkable is their indifference to personal liberty." "Let me ask if this people do not present the very material out of which slaves ought to be made?" "I do not mean to say that there may not be found among them some of superior capacity to many white persons…. And why should it not be so? We have many domestic animals— infinite varieties, distinguished by various degrees of sagacity, courage, strength, swiftness, and other qualities."

" Slavery has done more to elevate a degraded race in the scale of humanity; to tame the savage, to civilize the barbarous, to soften the ferocious, to enlighten the ignorant, and to spread the blessing of Christianity among the heathen, than all the missionaries that philanthropy and religion have ever put forth." "The tendency of Slavery is to elevate the character of the master," "to elevate the female character." "There does not now exist a people in a tropical climate, or even approaching to it, where Slavery does not exist that is in a state of high civilization. Mexico and the South American republics, having gone through the farce of abolishing slavery, are rapidly degenerating." "Cuba is daily and rapidly advancing in industry and civilization; and it is owing exclusively to her slaves. St Domingo is struck out of the map of civilized existence, and the British West Indies shortly will be so." "Greece is still barbarous, and scantily peopled." "Such is the picture of Italy—nothing has dealt upon it more heavily than the loss of domestic Slavery. Is not this evident?"[1]

A writer in the same work, speaking of the future of the South, refers to the British and French West Indies as follows:—

"The mind of the devout person who contemplates the condition of the ci-devant slave-colonies of these two powers, must become impressed with the fact, that Providence must have raised up those two examples of human folly for the express purpose of a lesson to these States, to save which from human errors it has, on more than one

  1. e Bow, voL ii. pp. 222— 229