February 3, 1861; The New York Herald
The reports of the proceedings of the Abolition Convention at Syracuse, which we published a day or two ago, show that a strong reaction has set in against the abolition sentiment in a city of this State, the scene of the Jerry rescue, and long the stronghold of anti slavery fanaticism. Similar developements have taken place in other parts of the State, including this city, and at various points in the North. Among these healthy symptoms, are the repeal of the Personal Liberty bill in Rhode Island, and the return of the fugitive slave Lucy from Cleveland, Ohio. The fanatical anti-slavery proceedings in Boston at the close of last week were not allowed to pass off so smoothly as usual; though in that city, a year ago, John Brown was canonized by the assembled citizens, including Governor Andrew.
The fearful consequences of the abolition propagandism in breaking up the Union and inaugurating civil war are coming home to every man’s business, if not to his bosom. Hence the effort to suppress it. But the sentiment still lies deep in the Northern mind, and though bills nullifying the Fugitive Slave law may be repealed in New England, the anti-slavery feeling is not eradicated, and will break out again in full blast if the question is not now finally settled beyond the reach of agitation. The Northern mind needs to be re-educated. The fertile source of the ever recurring mischief is the Puritan idea of the superiority of their sect over other men, and a mysterious divine right which they claim to possess of dictating to all mankind – a right which they hold to be higher than the authority of the Bible and the constitution, and which ought to be maintained at all hazards, even with Sharpe’s rifles, bayonets and cannon balls. This is a principle which has deluged Europe with blood for centuries, but happily is exploded there in the present age. The question for the American people to decide is, whether they will allow it to produce the same fruits here, or whether they will not now lay the axe to the root, that the poison tree may fall, never to bloom again in this soil.
According to Mr. Beecher, in a late sermon, ‘Puritan blood means the blood of Christ.’ Hence the superiority of Puritan blood, and the inferiority of all other blood; and hence Mr. Beecher says, ‘North is the brain and the moral centre of this confederacy;’ and Wendell Phillips last week, and indeed in all his lectures, affirms that the Puritanism of Massachusetts is the germ of which everything that is good in the country has sprung.
As for the North being the brain of the confederacy, the assertion is contrary to the notorious truth of history. A Southern man – Jefferson, a slaveholder – drew up the Declaration of Independence; a Southern man – Madison, a slaveholder – was the great artificer of the constitution; a Southern man – Washington, a slaveholder – presided over the federal convention which adopted it; was first President of the United States, as he was the victorious military chief of the Revolution – in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen. Up to the present time the slaveholding South has furnished the greater number of our Presidents and our principal statesmen, and it is only now, when narrow minded Puritanism attempts to grasp the helm, that there is danger of shipwreck. It was not the witch burning, persecuting sectarianism of Massachusetts that modelled the constitution, but the liberal ideas of Virginia – the Old Dominion, the mother of States and of Presidents. The colony of Jamestown was long ahead of that of Plymouth Rock – the rock on which we fear the Union is destined to be split. New York, too, was before the Bay State. The order of colonization in the thirteen States was as follows: –
Year
Virginia by the British………………………… 1607
New York by the Dutch (and afterwards by English)…. 1618
Massachusetts by the English Puritans……………. 1620
New Hampshire by the English Puritans……………. 1623
Delaware by the Swedes (afterwards by the Dutch and English)………. 1626
Connecticut by Massachusetts emigrants…………… 1633
Maryland by Lord Baltimore and the Catholics……… 1633
Rhode Island by Massachusetts emigrants………….. 1636
North Carolina by Virginia settlers……………… 1636
South Carolina by Virginia settlers……………… 1670
New Jersey by Dutch and Swedes………………….. 1670
Pennsylvania by Wm. Penn and the Quakers…………. 1681
Georgia by General Oglethorpe, the English and persecuted Protestants of all nations…… 1732
The proportion of the Puritan element in subsequent migrations from Europe was comparatively small. At the census immediately after the formation of the Union the population of Virginia was double that of Massachusetts, and nearly as great as that of the whole of the New England States. The population of Virginia was 747,610; that of all the New England States was only 827,443. The population of all the other States was 2,513,638. The population of New England was therefore only one fourth of the whole. So untrue is it that Puritanism preponderated either in population, religion or intellect, or that it controlled the destinies of the country at the formation of the government. The immense emigration of recent years has been chiefly Irish and German, far remote from Puritanical fanaticism. The population of New England today bears a still smaller proportion to that of the other States than it did at the time of the Revolution, and the Puritanical element in the whole country is far smaller than it was at the census of 1790. Far be it from us to deny that men of genius, able statesmen, scholars and distinguished patriots have been among the sons of the old Bay State, and at this day, in spite of their education, some of the most liberal minds in the country are to be found within her pale. But it must not be forgotten that Massachusetts first started the fatal idea of secession, which has been imitated by South Carolina; nor can it be denied by any impartial observer that Massachusetts has always arrogated too much credit to herself.
The idea of a confederated republic did not spring from the Puritans, but from the united Provinces of the Netherlands, who threw off the yoke of Spain; and the Hollanders borrowed it from the medieval confederations of Italian republics, who derived it from ancient Pagan Greece, the inventor of liberty and of arts. So little has the Christian religion of any sect, and least of all Puritanism, to do with the great charter of American freedom, which Mr. Beecher tells us is the sum of his and undefiled religion. If there is any one element of nationality in our constitution more than another it is that of the Dutch. As for the Puritans, they were not able to squeeze a particle of their sectarianism into the catholic and Godlike instrument.
In regard to slavery, Mr. Beecher conveys a totally false idea when he represents Massachusetts as having started a civilization with free labor, and Virginia a civilization with slave labor. He says: – ‘In one and the same year, 1620, English ships landed the Puritans in New England and the negro slaves in Virginia – two seeds of two systems that were destined to find here a growth and a strength unparalleled in history.’ Now, the truth of history is, that at the time of the Declaration of Independence all New England, including Massachusetts, was slave, and one of the grounds of revolution alleged in that manifesto was that the mother country excited insurrection of the negroes, as Puritan emissaries from New England have lately done in the South.
Massachusetts was the only State of the whole thirteen that was not a slave State at the time of the Union. She never discovered that slavery was a sin till it had ceased to be profitable in her cold, barren climate, adapted only to the white emigrant of Europe. For years afterwards her ships conveyed slaves from Africa to Virginia and other Southern States. And long before that she made slaves of the Indians and sold them into captivity. All the Northern States, like Massachusetts, have found out that white labor is more profitable, and the Puritan clergy have now discovered that negro slavery is a sin. The Southern States, on the contrary, find negro slavery profitable for their climate, and their clergy pronounce it not only no sin, but a beneficent institution, sanctioned by the Bible itself.
So far from negro slavery having any connection with the colonization of Virginia, she long protested against the importation of negroes from Africa by British authority. It was the discovery of the cotton gin by an ingenious Yankee that rendered slavery profitable to the South, and to the whole nation; and had the Puritans inhabited the South, instead of bleak New England, we should never hear a word from them against negro slavery. Even as it is they grow rich from the manufacture of cotton, and all of them wear the fabric which comes from slave culture, while none are so conscientious as to deny themselves the use of sugar, or rice, or tobacco, the products of the same kind of labor.
Now the Puritans hold that the negroes ought to be made free throughout the whole land – which of course implies their equality with the whites, their right to amalgamate with them, and their right to fill the public offices, from that of President downwards. The republicans hold that there ought to be only one kind of labor at the South and at the North. But the laws of nature overrule their contracted views. Hitherto homogeneous nations have been formed by race and climate, and their institutions have been regulated thereby. The United States of America form an exception to the rule, because their vast area embraces two opposite climates – one cold, suited only for white labor, and the other tropical, suited only for negro labor. For the first time in the history of the race it has thus become happy, contented, civilized and Christianized. In the North the negro dies out.
There is no antagonism, no irrepressible conflict, between the two systems of labor. Both harmonize with nature, and both contribute to the happiness of their respective sections and to the good of the whole. It is only by servitude under Christian masters that the negro has ever been rescued from barbarism, or can be preserved from relapsing into it. It is only by this system that he can be compelled to work in the South; and never did any population become civilized but by labor. Hence the failure to civilize the Indian, because he could not be subdued to labor. It is only by servitude of the negro that the two races can be kept distinct in one community; otherwise we should soon witness here the deterioration of men which has ruined Mexico. Servitude is happiness to the negro; liberty is a means of happiness to the Anglo Saxon, and the present relative condition of both races is the best security for the prosperity and well being of the whole community. This double system of civilization in one country is a new governmental idea peculiar to the United States of America. It has worked well, and would have worked well forever if let alone. Whether the condition of the North will be improved by the change which now seems inevitable, is a problem which yet remains to be solved.