n must in some measure be formed for his future condition. The early
impressions of obedience and submission, which slaves have received
among us, and the no less habitual arrogance and assumption of
superiority, among the whites, contribute, equally, to unfit the former
for _freedom_, and the latter for _equality_.[21] To expel them all at
once, from the United States, would in fact be to devote them only to a
lingering death by famine, by disease, and other accumulated miseries:
"We have in history but one picture of a similar enterprize, and there
we see it was necessary not only to open the sea by a miracle, for them
to pass, but more necessary to close it again to prevent their return
[Letter from Jas. Sullivan, Esq. to Dr. Belknap.]." To retain them among
us, would be nothing more than to throw so many of the human race upon
the earth without the means of subsistence: they would soon become idle,
profligate, and miserable. Unfit for their new condition, and unwilling
to return to their former laborious course, they would become the
caterpillars of the earth, and the tigers of the human race. The recent
history of the French West Indies exhibits a melancholy picture of the
probable consequences of a general, and momentary emancipation in any of
the states, where slavery has made considerable progress. In
Massachusetts the abolition of it was effected by a single stroke; a
clause in their constitution [Dr. Belknap.]: but the whites at that
time, were as sixty-five to one, in proportion to the blacks. The whole
number of free persons in the United States, south of Delaware state,
are 1,233,829, end there are 648,439 slaves; the proportion being less
than two to one. Of the cultivators of the earth in the same district,
it is probable that there are four slaves for one free white man.--To
discharge the former from their present condition, would be attended
with an immediate general famine, in those parts of the United States,
from which not all the productions of the other states, could deliver
them; similar evils might reasonably be apprehended from the adoption of
the measure by any one of the southern states; for in all of them the
proportion of slaves is too great, not to be attended with calamitous
effects, if they were immediately set free.[22] These are serious, I had
almost said unsurmountable obstacles, to general, simultaneous
emancipation.--There are other considerations not to be disregarded. A
great part of