The American Democrat/On Slavery
ON SLAVERY.
Domestic slavery is an institution as old as human annals, and probably will continue, in its spirit, through different modifications, as long as man shall remain under the different degrees of civilization that mark his actual existence. Slavery is no more sinful, by the christian code, than it is sinful to wear a whole coat, while another is in tatters, to eat a better meal than a neighbor, or otherwise to enjoy ease and plenty, while our fellow creatures are suffering and in want. According to the doctrines of Christ, we are "to do as we would be done by," but this law is not to be applied to slavery more than to any other interest of life. It is quite possible to be an excellent christian and a slave holder, and the relations of master and slave, may be a means of exhibiting some of the mildest graces of the character, as may those of king and subject, or principal and dependant, in any of the other modifications of human institutions.
In one sense, slavery may actually benefit a man, there being little doubt that the African is, in nearly all respects, better off in servitude in this country, than when living in a state of barbarism at home.
But, while slavery, in the abstract, can no more be considered a sin, than most human ordinances, it leads to sin in its consequences, in a way peculiarly its own, and may be set down as an impolitic and vicious institution. It encourages those faults of character that depend on an uncontrolled will, on the one side, and an abject submission, on the other. It usually limits the moral existence of the slave, too, as there is a necessity of keeping him ignorant, in order that he may be held in subjection.
Slavery is of two kinds; one in which the slave is a chattel, and can be disposed of as such, and one in which he is attached to the soil, like a fixture, and can only be sold with the land. The former is the condition of the American slave; the latter the condition of the European serf. All Europe, formerly, had serfs, or slaves, of the latter class, though their existence is now confined to a few countries in the north and east of that quarter of the world. Still, the consequences of the old system are, more or less, to be traced, in most European countries, and, though differing in degree, their people may as fairly be termed slaves in principle, as those of our own southern states.