Democracy in America — Volume 1 by Alexis de Tocqueville
1830. But this proportion is perpetually changing, as it constantly
445 words | Chapter 63
decreases in the North and augments in the South.
q
[ We find it asserted in an American work, entitled “Letters on the
Colonization Society,” by Mr. Carey, 1833, “That for the last forty
years the black race has increased more rapidly than the white race in
the State of South Carolina; and that if we take the average population
of the five States of the South into which slaves were first
introduced, viz., Maryland, Virginia, South Carolina, North Carolina,
and Georgia, we shall find that from 1790 to 1830 the whites have
augmented in the proportion of 80 to 100, and the blacks in that of 112
to 100.”
In the United States, in 1830, the population of the two races stood as
follows:—
States where slavery is abolished, 6,565,434 whites; 120,520 blacks.
Slave States, 3,960,814 whites; 2,208,102 blacks. [In 1890 the United
States contained a population of 54,983,890 whites, and 7,638,360
negroes.]]
It is evident that the most Southern States of the Union cannot abolish
slavery without incurring very great dangers, which the North had no
reason to apprehend when it emancipated its black population. We have
already shown the system by which the Northern States secure the
transition from slavery to freedom, by keeping the present generation
in chains, and setting their descendants free; by this means the
negroes are gradually introduced into society; and whilst the men who
might abuse their freedom are kept in a state of servitude, those who
are emancipated may learn the art of being free before they become
their own masters. But it would be difficult to apply this method in
the South. To declare that all the negroes born after a certain period
shall be free, is to introduce the principle and the notion of liberty
into the heart of slavery; the blacks whom the law thus maintains in a
state of slavery from which their children are delivered, are
astonished at so unequal a fate, and their astonishment is only the
prelude to their impatience and irritation. Thenceforward slavery
loses, in their eyes, that kind of moral power which it derived from
time and habit; it is reduced to a mere palpable abuse of force. The
Northern States had nothing to fear from the contrast, because in them
the blacks were few in number, and the white population was very
considerable. But if this faint dawn of freedom were to show two
millions of men their true position, the oppressors would have reason
to tremble. After having affranchised the children of their slaves the
Europeans of the Southern States would very shortly be obliged to
extend the same benefit to the whole black population.
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