The Right of American Slavery
Book Excerpt
BARBARISM SHOULD SUBSERVE CIVILIZATION.
To say, then, that it is JUST that barbarism should subserve civilization is a laconical axiom, which decides a plain question of right and wrong. The wrong is, that the African is a barbarian, and devours his kind; the right is, that in his service due and rendered to civilization, he receives its protection, and is compelled to forego the, to him, exquisite pleasure of devouring his kind. It will be observed that this view of the subject justifies, not only the perpetuation, but the inception of slavery, and renders emancipation absurd and cruel, and the inception of slavery just; leaving the continued transfer of barbarians to the midst of civilized communities, a right, the exercise of which could not involve or sacrifice any right of the barbarian, but must depend upon the enlightened decision of civilization, as to the reciprocal benefits
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His basic premise is, "The meanest slave that wears the shackle or feels the whip of civilization, in the reluctant performance of coerced labor, is a far nobler being than the African barbarian in his native wilds." Treat the work as an exercise in finding logical flaws.
He opens the piece with a patriotic appeal to stop debating the issue, and pretty much execrates everyone who disagrees with him. He has sources of knowledge unavailable to mortal men. For instance, he knows that the reason England abolished slavery was to embarrass its former colonies.
It belongs on the same shelf as The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.
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