The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 19, July 1915 - April, 1916 Page: 435
452 p. : maps ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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British Correspondence Concerning Texas
cast general blame on the Slave holding proprietary of the United
States. Nothing can be farther from my feeling and purposes.
I am well acquainted with many of these gentlemen, and I know
that their people are humanely treated, and lightly worked, and
well clad, and lodged and fed: And much more than all this,
that the responsibility of their training for better things is deeply
felt, and most honourably discharged at large pecuniary sacrifice,
and in the beginning at no trifling amount of suspicion and ill
will on the part of their neighbours; giving way now (as all such
feelings will, before right motives and firm conduct) to the
sounder spirit of assent, and laudable emulation. The whole
Country is their Debtor. But the manifest error of these worthy
persons is that they judge of the system from their own practice,
forgetting that it constitutes the exception to the rule.
I will freely admit, however, that the Slave population of the
United States of America appears to me to be better cared for,
and in an incomparably more advanced condition in point of
intelligence than any other that I have ever seen (and I have had
a long and extensive experience on this subject). But this ob-
servation only convinces me more firmly that there is no ground
for the arguments of the persons who resist further change and
improvements, and who would continue to subject a people to the
purchase and sale conditions of Cattle, arrived long since at the
condition of an intelligent peasantry.
I remember to have read a Speech of Mr McDuffie's20 deliv-
ered some years since in the Senate) connected with this subject,
which seemed to me to be pregnant with truth and soundness
up to a certain point; but thenceforward falling lamentably short
of any just practical advice.
-Ie dwelt with perfect truth, and beaming pride on the prog-
ress that this race had made on this Continent, he contrasts
their situation with the state of the race on the Coast of Guiana.;
he compared it with that of several of the peasantries of Europe.
In due succession it might have been supposed that he would
have concluded with an assertion of their rights, as well as fit-
ness, and with earnest advice to adopt at once some safe prin-
IQGeorge McDuffie. Member of Congress from South Carolina, 1821-
1834. Governor of South Carolina, 1834-1836. United States Senator,
1842-1846. (Appleton, Cyclop. of Amer. Biog.)435
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 19, July 1915 - April, 1916, periodical, 1916; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101067/m1/462/: accessed May 3, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.