I say kidnapping, for I
have myself seen persons in Georgia who had been kidnapped in
Maryland. If the devil was ever incarnate, I think it safe to look for
him among those who engaged in the slave-trade, whether in a foreign
or domestic form.
Nothing is more striking in connection with the history of American
Slavery than the conduct of Great Britain on the same subject. So
inconsistent has this conduct been that it can be explained only by
regarding England as a conglomerate of two elements nearly equal in
strength, of directly opposite character, ruling alternately the
affairs of the nation. As a slave-trader and slave-holder England was
perhaps even worse than the United States. Under her rule the slave
decreased in numbers, and remained a savage. In Jamaica, in St.
Vincent, in British Guiana, in Barbadoes, in Trinidad and in Grenada,
British slavery was far worse than American slavery. In these colonies
"the slave was generally a barbarian, speaking an unknown tongue, and
working with men like himself, in gangs with scarcely a chance for
improvement." An economist says, had the slaves of the British
colonies been as well fed, clothed, lodged, and otherwise cared for as
were those of the United States, their number at emancipation would
have reached from seventeen to twenty millions, whereas the actual
number emancipated was only 660,000.
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