Rare Book Monthly

Articles - April - 2003 Issue

Slavery in the United States <br> Chapter 7

none


It may not be incurious to inquire in what chymical solution all the antipathies of church and state have been thus neutralized and brought into harmonious co-operation against the institutions of the United States.

There must be something extraordinary, some cement eminently adhesive, to have produced this miraculous conjunction of opposing bodies, which, to use the figure of my Lord Bacon, "like the iron and clay in Nebuchadnezzar's image, may cleave together, but will never incorporate." Let it no more be said that oil and vinegar will not mix together, when we see Sir Robert Peel and Mr. O'Connell uniting in denouncing the Colonization Society of the United States at a meeting of abolitionists in the city of London.

It can no longer be disguised that the United States are the bugbears of despotism in Europe. The freedom of their institutions, the universal diffusion of plenty, the absence of those factitious distinctions that weigh so heavily on the necks of the people of the Old World, their rapid unparalleled advance in numbers, wealth, and vigour, and the vast, uncircumscribed sphere they present for the exercise of industry and enterprise, are daily more and more attracting the attention of a large portion of those who wish to be free, as well as those who desire to prevent them. The new Medina of the West, seems destined, like that of the East, to become the centre whence a grand revolution, infinitely more favourable to the happiness of mankind, is to spread far and wide into the circumference of the civilized world. The United States of North America led the van—they set the first example ; and unless that example can in some way or other be divested of its fascinations, those royal and aristocratic privileges on which the thrones of Europe are supported, will every day lose some portion of that reverence and respect which constitute their basis.

The people of that quarter are every day catching from the distant luminary of the West new glimpses of the light of liberty; and the more they see, the more they desire to bask in its sunshine. They are becoming every day more deeply imbued with a love of those free principles and institutions which work such wonders on individual and national prosperity. It has become obvious to the more sagacious of those who banquet on the spoils of graybeard usurpations, that inspired by the example of the United States, the people of Europe are gradually preparing themselves to reclaim their rights, and to demand a relinquishment of the monopoly of wealth, founded on a monopoly of political power. This vast and increasing association of empires, self-governed, and supported on the broad basis of equal rights, must and will, by the force and influence of its example, work similar wonders in the Old World, to those it has already produced in South America, where it is feared that ignorance and superstition will finally triumph over liberty, and mar one of the fairest prospects that ever dawned upon mankind in any age or country. While it continues to present a glorious example of the blessings arising from the absence of those rigid and inflexible abuses, which have for ages pressed so heavily on the necks of the people, it must be obvious that all the obsolete and unreasonable prerogatives of kings and aristocracies, which were necessary perhaps at the period of their first existence, must ere long cease to exist. Nothing can save them ultimately but a conviction in the minds of the people of Europe that the experiment of self-government has either entirely failed in the United States, or that in its consequences it does not realize the anticipations of theorists. The United States are therefore to be held up to the world as memorable examples of the absurdity of a great principle on which is based the liberties of mankind; their religion, their morals, their social character and habits, and above all their humanity and justice, are to be assailed by all the arts and influence of church and state abroad. England, by her still remembered maternal authority; by long established precedency in the eyes of our people; and above all by her means of influencing us derived from a common language, is most able, and at the same time most willing, to take the lead in the crusade against a child which is destined to add new honours to her name, new wreaths to her glory, new triumphs to her genius. She has accordingly shown discreditably conspicuous in a species of hostility which better suits toothless viragoes than great nations, one of which is destined to become in the New, what the other has been, perhaps still is, in the Old World.

It seems to have been one great object, so to exert the vast influence of her press and her literature, as to throw over us a dark mantle of oblo- quy, which, while it obscured all the charms of youth and happiness, presented a picture of exaggerated deformity. All, or nearly all the English travellers in this country, have come hither apparently for no other purpose than to indulge a splenetic feeling, and collect new materials for calumny. They have exaggerated and caricatured the little peculiarities originating in the situation and circumstances of our countrymen, and metamorphosed all those characteristics which mark a free people in the full possession of their primitive energies, into the vices of barbarism. Rare and extreme cases of doubtful authority, are made by them the criterion of public manners and morals ; and the balance between the two nations is struck by a comparison of the refinements of the highest class in England with the lowest in the United States. If it was not the design of these writers to administer to the prejudices of those to whom they addressed themselves, or to pander to that hostility which our form of government and the success of its operation on the happiness of mankind inspires, to weaken in fact the influence of our example, then their course indicates a degree of gratuitous, un-purposed malignity, which, as it is without a rational motive, so is it without an apology.

This hostile feeling towards our national character and institutions has lately assumed a new and more mischievous disguise. It comes abroad masked under the semblance of humanity to the slave. It is employed in fomenting designs equally destructive to our peace and our union. The press of England teems with books, and tracts, and speeches, and paragraphs, reprehending the government of the United States for not doing what is impossible, and the people of the South for refusing to consent to the requisitions of sublimated theorists. Without examining into the subject, without making themselves in the least acquainted with the origin of the institution of slavery among us, or paying the slightest attention to the insuperable difficulties attending its abolishment, they pour upon our heads a stream of reproach, and attempt to bully us into submission to their arrogant demands of instant emancipation. We are denounced as a nation of liars and hypocrites, American wolves, and atrabilious tyrants, because we decline to come under the yoke of our own slaves, and debase the dignity of human nature by a process of amalgamation. We are charged with belying our declared principles in our practice; with wanton oppression and systematic cruelty; with being tyrants over one race of men, while insolently affecting to be the champions of the rights of all mankind.

Rare Book Monthly

  • Sotheby’s
    Modern First Editions
    Available for Immediate Purchase
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Winston Churchill. The Second World War. Set of First-Edition Volumes. 6,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: A.A. Milne, Ernest H. Shepard. A Collection of The Pooh Books. Set of First-Editions. 18,600 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Salvador Dalí, Lewis Carroll. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Finely Bound and Signed Limited Edition. 15,000 USD
    Sotheby’s
    Modern First Editions
    Available for Immediate Purchase
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Ian Fleming. Live and Let Die. First Edition. 9,500 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter Series. Finely Bound First Printing Set of Complete Series. 5,650 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Ernest Hemingway. A Farewell to Arms. First Edition, First Printing. 4,200 USD
  • Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A RUTH BADER GINSBURG BEADED JUDICIAL COLLAR. $80,000 - $120,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: ONLY KNOWN COPY OF THE ONLY BOOK BY THE REMARKABLE EVE ADAMS. $8,000 - $12,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A COMPLETE RUN OF VISIONAIRE MAGAZINE THROUGH 2010. $6,000 - $9,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: LAW REVIEW OFFPRINT SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY RUTH BADER GINSBURG. $3,000 - $5,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: META REBNER'S WORKING SCRIPT OF THE LOVED ONE. $1,500 - $2,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A KATHY GROVE PORTRAIT OF CYNDI LAUPER FOR THE FEBRUARY 1989 DETAILS COVER. $800 - $1,200
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A PLASTIC COAT BY MILLIE DAVID FEATURED IN SOHO NEWS STYLE SECTION, FROM THE COLLECTION OF ANNIE FLANDERS. $500 - $700
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A RUTH BADER GINSBURG JEWELRY BOX. $600 - $900
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A SET OF JONI MITCHELL LYRICS FOR "IF I HAD A HEART." $2,000 - $3,000
  • 19th Century Shop
    Catalogue 198 just published
    19th Century Shop. Darwin and Wallace, first printing of the first paper on natural selection
    19th Century Shop. Shakespeare’s Poems, first collected edition
    19th Century Shop. Walt Whitman portrait inscribed with a Leaves of Grass poem
    19th Century Shop. Major Elizabeth Barrett Browning manuscript notebook
    19th Century Shop. Spock's Baby Book, original MS
    19th Century Shop. Cellarius, Harmonia Macrocosmica, the great celestial atlas
  • Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [RUTH, George Herman “Babe” (1895-1948)]. Signed photograph. Circa 1930s. 191 x 248 mm. $1,500 to $2,500.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: HARRISON, Benjamin. Document signed (“Benj Harrison”) as governor of Virginia, certifying the service of Daniel Cumbo, a Black Revolutionary soldier. $6,000 to $9,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: ONE OF THE FIRST PRINTED ANNOUNCEMENTS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. $4,000 to $6,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: FIRST PRINTING OF LINCOLN’S IMMORTAL GETTYSBURG ADDRESS. $4,000 to $6,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: HIGHLY IMPORTANT MORMON ARCHIVE. ALLEY, George. Archive of 23 Autograph Letters Signed by Mormon Convert George Alley to His Brother Joseph Alley. $10,000 to $20,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [AVIATION]. [ARMSTRONG, Neil A.] Aviation Hall of Fame Gold Medal MS64 NGC, Awarded to Neil Armstrong in 1979. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: NEWLY DISCOVERED FIRST PRINTING OF "WITH MALICE TOWARDS NONE... " FROM THE ONLY NEWSPAPER ACTUALLY ALLOWED TO PARTICIPATE IN LINCOLN’S SECOND INAUGURAL PROCESSION. $4,000 to $8,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: THE MOST IMPORTANT GEORGE WASHINGTON DOCUMENT IN PRIVATE HANDS; GEORGE WASHINGTON’S COMMISSION AS COMMANDER IN CHIEF, 1775, ONE OF ONLY TWO ORIGINALS. $150,000 to $250,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: A VERY RARE ACCOUNT OF BLACKBEARD’S DEATH AND ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT PIRATE ITEMS EXTANT. $3,000 to $5,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: EDISON, Thomas. Patent for Edison’s Improvements on the Electric-Light, No. 219,628. [Washington, D.C.: U.S. Patent Office], 16 September 1879. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [VIETNAM WAR]. The original pen used by Secretary of State William P. Rogers to sign the Vietnam Peace Agreement, Paris, 27 January 1973. $10,000 to $15,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: SONS OF LIBERTY FOUNDER COLONEL BARRÉ ANNOTATED TITLE-PAGE, “WHICH OUGHT TO ROUSE UP BRITISH ATTENTION”. $4,000 to $6,000.
  • Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: [Langland (William)]. The vision of Pierce Plowman, nowe the seconde time imprinted..., Roberte Crowley, 1550. £8,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: [Shakespeare (William)]. [Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies], second folio edition, [by Tho.Cotes, for Robert Allot], [1632]. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Bible, Czech Biblia Bohemica, first complete Bible printed in the Czech vernacular, Prague, August 1488. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: Shabthai Tzvi.- Collection of four printed and illustrated broadsides detailing the appearance, rise and fall of the false messiah, Shabthai Tzvi, Augsburg, 1666-67. £40,000 to £60,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Leaf from the Beauvais Missal, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment, [Northern France (perhaps Beauvais or Amiens)], [fourteenth century (c.1310)]. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Aubrey (John). [Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme], manuscript in English, Latin and Greek, [c. 1693]. £30,000 to £50,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord). Poems on Various Occasions, first edition, Harriet Maltby's copy, Newark, Printed by S. & J. Ridge, 1807. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Tolkien (J.R.R.) The Hobbit, first edition, second impression with dust-jacket, 1937 [but 1938]. £7,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Blake (William).- Thornton (Robert John). The Pastorals of Virgil, 2 vol., engraved plates by William Blake, 1821. £8,000 to £12,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: America.- Mount (William J.) & Thomas Page. The English Pilot…, [bound with] The Fourth Book, describing The West Indies Navigation from Hudson's-Bay to the River Amazones, 1721. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Oldfield (Henry Ambrose), Rajman Singh Chitrakar & others. An album of 160 photographs and 13 original artworks, (1833-1919), [c. 1850s-1880s]. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Audubon (John James) [and William MacGillivray]. Ornithological Biography…, 5 vol., first edition, presentation copy inscribed by Audubon, Edinburgh, 1831-49 [i.e. 1831-39]. £10,000 to £15,000.

Article Search

Archived Articles

Ask Questions