I am aware that Las Cases used this argument; but it was less unbecoming in him than it is in a philanthropist of the present day. The speaker does indeed say that "the 'infinite of agonies' and the infinite of crime, since suffered and committed, proves that mercy cannot exist in opposition to justice." I can hardly realize what sort of a conscience it must be, that needed the demonstration.
The plain truth was, the Spaniards were in a hurry for gold; they overworked the native Indians, who were inconsiderate enough to die in very inconvenient numbers; but the gold must be had, and that quickly; and so the Africans were forced to come and die in company with the Indians. And in the nineteenth century, we are told it is our duty not to forget that this was a "simulated form of mercy!" A _dis_simulated form would have been the better expression.
If we may believe slave-owners, the whole system, from beginning to end, is a matter of mercy. They have described the Middle Passage, with its gags, fetters, and thumb-screws, as "the happiest period of a negro's life;" they say they do the slaves a great charity in bringing them from barbarous Africa to a civilized and Christian country; and on the plantation, under the whip of the driver, the negroes are so happy, that a West India planter publicly declared he could not look upon them, without wishing to be himself a slave.
In the speech above referred to, we are told, that as to any political interference, "the slave States are _foreign_ States. We can alienate their feelings until they become foreign enemies; or, on the other hand, we can conciliate them until they become allies and auxiliaries in the sacred cause of emancipation."
But so long as the South insist that slavery is _unavoidable_, and say they will not tolerate any schemes _tending_ to its abolition--and so long as the North take the _necessity_ of slavery for an unalterable truth, and put down any discussions, however mild and candid, which tend to show that it _may_ be done away with safety--so long as we thus strengthen each other's hands in evil, what remote hope is there of emancipation? If by political interference is meant _hostile_ interference, or even a desire to promote insurrection, I should at once pronounce it to be most wicked; but if by political interference is meant the liberty to investigate this subject, as other subjects are investigated--to inquire into what has been done, and what may be done--I say it is our sacred duty to do it. To enlighten public opinion is the best way that has yet been discovered for the removal of national evils; and slavery is certainly a _national_ evil.