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.UnlikeFurman, Dalcho remained deeply skeptical about slaves’ capacity for moral develop-ment.He thought that the Vesey rebellion plot revealed that “little confi dence couldbe placed in the religious profession of negroes,” since they apparently felt “littlereal devotion” to the faith even after conversion.88 Dalcho’s pessimistic view of theslaves’ capacity for moral and intellectual improvement colored his argument forpaternalism.He expected slaves to greet paternalism with a measure of calculatedresistance and twist paternalism’s intentions to their own purposes.“Gratitude is notone of their virtues,” Dalcho observed with reference to slaves.“What they receivethey consider their due, and indulgence too often leads them to practice imposition.”Thus, despite the wise application of paternalism by many slaveholders, the “severest”master, Dalcho conceded, “will always have the most orderly slaves.” Whatever theresults, however, the duty of masters was clear.They must treat slaves “with Christiankindness in every respect” but “make them perform their duty.” Like children, slaves“were to be corrected” when “they will not do what is right.” Dalcho argued that themission to slaves would do at least some good, and that masters were morally obligedto try to bring the Word to their slaves regardless of outcome.Dalcho supported theeff ort to Christianize slaves more because it was required for the salvation of mastersA N A L Y Z I N G T H E S C A R E265than because he expected Christian paternalism to render slaves more moral or morereadily controlled.Dalcho’s paternalism held a harder edge than Furman’s.Masters must be respect-ful but fi rm with their slaves.Stern correction must follow slave misdeeds.Evenpaternalists should not lose sight of the benefi ts of severity in slave management.In return for their kindness, Dalcho warned, slaveholders must expect ingratitude.Slaves would try to take advantage of a master’s kindness and impose on his gen-erosity.The slaveholders’ reward, Dalcho believed, would come from a triune Godwho expected his servants to serve faithfully, not from increasingly productive andwell-behaved slaves.Moreover, Dalcho’s blunt assertions about slaves’ lack of capac-ity for learning suggested a racial view markedly diff erent from Furman’s.Dalcho’spaternalist masters loomed not so much as surrogates for benevolent associations ascolonial viceroys doing a thankless duty as they reaped a harvest of spoils.Dalchoviewed the negative characteristics of black slaves, which he saw as ingratitude, dis-loyalty, laziness, and insincerity, as innate racial characteristics, and he doubted thatthe slaves’ conversion to Christianity would meliorate these innate character tenden-cies very much, even though he insisted whites were obligated to try.Slaves, Dalchoadmitted, were men, and thus had souls in need of salvation.But unlike Furman,who leaned toward seeing slavery as a school from which graduation might ulti-mately be possible but not anytime soon, not only did the notion of equality neveremerge from Dalcho’s pen, but he never suggested that black slaves would ever be fi tfor freedom in the American South.Dalcho’s muscular paternalism stood a betterchance of appealing to fabulously wealthy rice and Sea Island cotton magnates whorented and purchased pews at Lowcountry Episcopal churches than did Furman’smore egalitarian version.These Episcopalian masters generally admired the idea ofa hierarchical social order and were willing to seek it in their relations with otherwhites as well as in their relationships with slaves and free blacks.They embracedpaternalism with one arm, keeping the other hand free for the lash.They acceptedthe responsibilities of power and place, but they also expected to use the whip as wellas the Word in managing slaves.Yet, like Furman, Dalcho pulled up well short of a full-blown proslavery argument.Slavery as an abstract principle, the Episcopal pastor admitted, “is not in accordancewith all our feelings.We deprecate the evil which attends it.We would most will-ingly apply the remedy if we knew what it was.” Dalcho, perhaps to the shock ofhis slaveholding parishioners, set a more precise, if equally improbable, conditionfor ending slavery in the South Carolina Lowcountry than Furman did.If, Dalchoargued, “the non-slaveholding states will purchase our plantations and slaves, andsend the latter to Africa, under the patronage of the Colonization Society.I donot in my conscience believe there would be many Planters in South Carolina whowould hesitate one moment to get rid of both, even at something below their value.”But “as to parting with them without an equivalent, [it] is out of the question; forour servants are our money.” 89 Instead of asking antislavery advocates for patience, as266P A T E R N A L I S M I N C R I S I SFurman had, so that the fullness of time could eradicate existing inequalities betweenraces, Dalcho sought a fully compensated emancipation accompanied by Africancolonization.He defi ned full compensation as payment for damages to land valuesas well as for the loss of slaves, and included the cost of the immediate colonizationof former slaves in his demand as well [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |
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