The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921

28. What is the proportion of free blacks and slaves?

29. Is it considered that the increase in the proportion of free blacks to slaves increases or diminishes the danger of insurrection?

30. Are the free blacks employed in the defence of the Country, and do they and the Creoles preclude the necessity of European troops?

31. Do the free blacks appear to consider themselves as more closely connected with the slaves or with the white population? and in cases of insurrection, with which have they generally taken part?

32. What is their general character with respect to industry and order, as compared with that of the slaves?

33. Are there any instances of emancipation in particular estates, and what is the result?

34. Is there any general plan of emancipation in progress, and what?

35. What was the mode and progress of emancipation in those States in America where slavery has ceased to exist?

Hon. James Madison, Esq.

    New Haven, Mar. 14, 1823.

Sir.—The foregoing was transmitted to me from a respectable correspondent in Liverpool, deeply engaged in the abolition of the slave trade, and the amelioration of the condition of slaves. If, sir, your leisure will allow you, and it is agreeable to you to furnish brief answers to these questions, you will, I conceive, essentially serve the cause of humanity, and gratify and oblige the Society above named, and, Sir, with high consideration and esteem, your most obt servt,

    Jed'h Morse.

Answers

1. Yes.

2. Employs an overseer for that number of slaves, with few exceptions.

3. –

4. Not uncommonly the land; sometimes the slaves; very rarely both together.

5. The common law, as in England, governs the relation between land and debts; slaves are often sold under execution for debt; the proportion to the whole cannot be great within a year, and varies, of course, with the amount of debt and the urgency of creditors.

6. Yes.

7-10. Instances are rare where the tobacco planters do not raise their own provisions.

11. The proper comparison, not between the culture of tobacco and that of sugar and cotton, but between each of these cultures and that of provisions. The tobacco planter finds it cheaper to make them a part of his crop than to buy them. The cotton and sugar planters to buy them, where this is the case, than to raise them. The term, cheaper, embraces the comparative facility and certainty of procuring the supplies.

12. Generally best clothed when from the household manufactures, which are increasing.

14, 15. Slaves seldom employed in regular task work. They prefer it only when rewarded with the surplus time gained by their industry.

16. Not the practice to substitute an allowance of time for the allowance of provisions.

17. Very many, and increasing with the progressive subdivisions of property; the proportion cannot be stated.

18, 19. The fewer the slaves, and the fewer the holders of slaves, the greater the indulgence and familiarity. In districts composing (comprising?) large masses of slaves there is no difference in their condition, whether held in small or large numbers, beyond the difference in the dispositions of the owners, and the greater strictness of attention where the number is greater.

20. There is no general system of religious instruction. There are few spots where religious worship is not within reach, and to which they do not resort. Many are regular members of Congregations, chiefly Baptist; and some Preachers also, though rarely able to read.

21. Not common; but the instances are increasing.

22. The accommodation not unfrequent where the plantations are very distant. The slaves prefer wives on a different plantation, as affording occasions and pretexts for going abroad, and exempting them on holidays from a share of the little calls to which those at home are liable.

23. The remarkable increase of slaves, as shown by the census, results from the comparative defect of moral and prudential restraint on the sexual connexion; and from the absence, at the same time, of that counteracting licentiousness of intercourse, of which the worst examples are to be traced where the African trade, as in the West Indies, kept the number of females less than of the males.

24. The annual expense of food and raiment in rearing a child may be stated at about 8, 9, or 10 dollars; and the age at which it begins to be gainful to its owner about 9 or 10 years.

25. The practice here does not furnish data for a comparison of cheapness between these two modes of cultivation.

26. They are sometimes hired for field labour in time of harvest, and on other particular occasions.

27. The examples are too few to have established any such relative prices.

28. See the census.

29. Rather increases.

30. –

31. More closely with the slaves, and more likely to side with them in a case of insurrection.

32. Generally idle and depraved; appearing to retain the bad qualities of the slaves, with whom they continue to associate, without acquiring any of the good ones of the whites, from whom (they) continued separated by prejudices against their colour, and other peculiarities.

33. There are occasional instances in the present legal condition of leaving the State.

34. None.

35. –[116 - Letters and other Writings of James Madison, III, 310-315.]

To Miss Frances Wright

    Montpellier, Sept. 1, 1825.

Dear Madam,—Your letter to Mrs. Madison, containing observations addressed to my attention also, came duly to hand, as you will learn from her, with a printed copy of your plan for the gradual abolition of slavery in the United States.

The magnitude of this evil among us is so deeply felt, and so universally acknowledged, that no merit could be greater than that of devising a satisfactory remedy for it. Unfortunately the task, not easy under other circumstances, is vastly augmented by the physical peculiarities[117 - These peculiarities, it would seem, are not of equal force in the South American States, owing, in part, perhaps, to a former degradation, produced by colonial vassalage; but principally to the lesser contrast of colours. The difference is not striking between that of many of the Spanish and Portuguese Creoles and that of many of the mixed breed.—J. M.] of those held in bondage, which preclude their incorporation with the white population; and by the blank in the general field of labour to be occasioned by their exile; a blank into which there would not be an influx of white labourers, successively taking the place of the exiles, and which, without such an influx, would have an effect distressing in prospect to the proprietors of the soil.

The remedy for the evil which you have planned is certainly recommended to favorable attention by the two characteristics: 1. That it requires the voluntary concurrence of the holders of the slaves, with or without pecuniary compensation. 2. That it contemplates the removal of those emancipated, either to a foreign or distant region. And it will still further obviate objections, if the experimental establishments should avoid the neighborhood of settlements where there are slaves.

Supposing these conditions to be duly provided for, particularly the removal of the emancipated blacks, the remaining questions relate to the attitude and adequacy of the process by which the slaves are at the same time to earn the funds, entire or supplemental, required for their emancipation and removal; and to be sufficiently educated for a life of freedom and of social order.

With respect to a proper course of education, no serious difficulties present themselves. And as they are to continue in a state of bondage during the preparatory period, and to be within the jurisdiction of States recognizing ample authority over them, a competent discipline cannot be impracticable. The degree in which this discipline will enforce the needed labour, and in which a voluntary industry will supply the defect of compulsory labour, are vital points, on which it may not be safe to be very positive without some light from actual experiment.

Considering the probable composition of the labourers, and the known fact that, where the labour is compulsory the greater the number of labourers brought together (unless, indeed, where cooperation of many hands is rendered essential by a particular kind of work, or of machinery) the less are the proportional profits, it may be doubted whether the surplus from that source merely, beyond the support of the establishment would sufficiently accumulate in five, or even more years, for the objects in view. And candor obliges me to say that I am not satisfied either that the prospect of emancipation at a future day will sufficiently overcome the natural and habitual repugnance to labour, or that there is such an advantage of united over individual labour as is taken for granted.