Posted on 05/10/2021 6:59:28 AM PDT by ProgressingAmerica
I think that this excerpt you have provided shows his comments to have merit. When he says "The Americans, when the stamp act was first proposed, undoubtedly disliked it, as every nation dislikes an impost; but they had no thought of resisting it, till they were encouraged and incited by European intelligence, from men whom they thought their friends, but who were friends only to themselves. "
I think he is referring to people like John Locke, Samuel Rutherford, and Emmerich Vattel. These men would have been considered European intellectuals of their era, and their ideas were indeed embraced by many of the agitators for independence here in America.
It was Vattel who explicitly stated that the Colonies could form a confederation of states and rule themselves, so I think Samuel Johnson had this part absolutely right.
As for the part about Americans wanting independence while practicing slavery, it seems like an offhand comment intended to provoke mirth by demonstrating their hypocrisy rather than something he spent a great deal of time exploring.
He appears to be a loyal Englishman who was promoting what he felt was in the best interests of both England and America but with no question as to who should be ruling whom.
You can hardly blame it on the English. Portugal and Spain had far more history with it than did the English.
Born free but everywhere is in chains is a reference to Rousseau I believe. Samuel’s great friend, Burke was a Whig defending American colonists and thus irritating the Tory Johnson. They could argue in writing but stayed away from most political arguments in person due to mutual respect.
The author is correct the quote in context is about the ability of colonists to accept their position as governed and that acceptance is marginalized as slave holders.
Slavery existed in England’s American colonies because the King, Parliament and English merchants profited from the trade. It didn’t exist in England.
It did for awhile, but they got rid of it a lot earlier than we did.
"In 1729 the Attorney General and Solicitor General of England signed the Yorke–Talbot slavery opinion, expressing their view (and, by implication, that of the Government) that slavery of Africans was lawful in England. At this time slaves were openly bought and sold on commodities markets at London and Liverpool.[56] Slavery was also accepted in Britain's many colonies. "
Towards the conclusion of his Taxation no Tyranny, he says, “how is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?"The argument dictated by Dr. Johnson was as follows:
"It must be agreed that in most ages many countries have had part of their inhabitants in a state of slavery; yet it may be doubted whether slavery can ever be supposed the natural condition of man. It is impossible. not to conceive that men in their original state were equal; and very difficult to imagine how one would be subjected to another but by violent compulsion. An individual may, indeed, forfeit his liberty by a crime; but he cannot by that crime forfeit the liberty of his children. What is true of a criminal seems true likewise of a captive. A man may accept life from a conquering enemy on condition of perpetual servitude; but it is very doubtful whether he can entail that servitude on his descendants; for no man can stipulate without commission for another. The condition which he himself accepts, his son or grandson perhaps would have rejected. If we should admit, what perhaps may with more reason be denied, that there are certain relations between man and man which may make slavery necessary and just, yet it can never be proved that lie who is now suing for his freedom ever stood in any of those relations. He is certainly subject by no law, but that of violence, to his present master; who pretends no claim to his obedience, but that he bought him from a merchant of slaves, whose right to sell him never was examined. It is said that, according to the constitutious of Jamaica. he was legally enslaved; these constitutions are merely positive; and apparently injurious to the rights of mankind, because whoever is exposed to sale is condemned to slavery without appeal; by whatever fraud or violence he might have been originally brought into the merchant's power. In our own time Princes have been sold, by wretches to whose care they were entrusted, that they might have an European education; but when once they were brought to a market in the plantations, little would avail either their dignity or their wrongs.
The laws of Jamaica afford a Negro no redress. His colour is considered as a sufficient testimony against him. It is to be lamented that moral right should ever give way to political convenience. But if temptations of interest are sometimes too strong for human virtue, let us at least retain a virtue where there is no temptation to quit it. In the present case there is apparent right on one side, and no convenience on the other. Inhabitants of this island can neither gain riches nor power by taking away the liberty of any part of the human species. The sum of the argument is this: - No man is by nature the property of another: The defendant is, therefore, by nature free : The rights of nature must be some way forfeited before they can be justly taken away: That the defendant has by any act forfeited the rights of nature we require to be proved; and if no proof of such forfeiture can be given, we doubt not but the justice of the court will declare him free.
I record Dr. Johnson's argument fairly upon this particular case; where, perhaps, he was in the right. But I beg leave to enter my most solemn protest against his general doctrine with respect to the Slave Trade. For I will resolutely say that his unfavourable notion of it was owing to prejudice, and imperfect or false information. The wild and dangerous attempt which has for some time been persisted in to obtain an act of our Legislature, to abolish so very important and necessary a branch of commercial interest, must have been crushed at once, had not the insignificance of the zealots who vainly took the lead in it, made the vast body of Planters, Merchants, and others, whose immense properties are involved in that trade, reasonably enough suppose that there could be no danger. The encouragement which the attempt has received excites my wonder and indignation.
Yeah, I do think it was an off handed comment but as for the rest I don't really think that's what it was. That's what the Times wants us to believe. Here's what they wrote again:
It’s not that they didn’t recognize slavery as an important part of American society, or were unaware of contemporaneous critique of the founding generation (like Samuel Johnson’s famous quip in 1775’s “Taxation No Tyranny” asking “How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of Negroes?”), but that slavery was a parenthetical in their story of the founding.
This is spectacular propaganda of the expected kind from the Times. It's a bait and switch.
Was slavery recognized as important? Of course it was, they were passing abolitionist laws prior to independence, it's in the rough draught Jefferson wrote. Were there critiques by people of the Founders arguments? Yes, and Johnson's work was one of them. But was Johnson's critique a slavery-primary critique?
No, it was not, and that's what makes the Times flat wrong. It was at best an off handed comment, and at worst, limited in scope because Johnson knew full well that Britain was in the driver's seat of "American slavery", so-called "American slavery" at the time.(It was Britain's slavery, we were colonies of the Empire. We had no say, the dictator told us what we were or weren't going to do.) See my above post, Boswell has a second entry regarding this quote and a funny thing? Johnson doesn't mention America once.(Or their equivalent the then-13 colonies)
He specifically mentions Jamaica. Why would he bring up Jamaica in an explanation of the comment if it's all about how bad American slavery is? None of it adds up. Why Jamaica?
It's clear that Johnson held Britain to be hypocritical because many Britons at the time held themselves to be free, in very similar ways. From Johnson's point of view he would have held the West Indies as the prime of slavery and from the point of view of the Empire's slave holdings the West Indies were in fact the prime of their slave holdings. Look at what Johnson wrote, in his explanation he talked of the "natural condition" of man - the same things our Founders believed in. Natural Rights. The more this gets examined, the worse it looks for the Times.
Johnson is even known to have quipped: "Here's to the next insurrection of the negroes in the West Indies"
In our time we are trained by historians to get all defensive about slave drivers through the guilt that government schools have instilled in us over the last 50 to 100 years, we're trained to not know how to deal with it. They are doing this to us from front to end. But in Johnson's time the slave driving would have had the obvious focus in Britain's prime slavery hot spots. Were there Jamaican plantation owners yelping at the same time that those on the mainland 13 colonies yelping? I bet there were, and I bet their names have purposely been removed from their record because the fact is that historians suck. They're ideological and they've been committing historical malpractice to achieve ideological goals for generations, save for the most precious few. They were taken over by progressivism decades ago; a century ago.
When England got rid of slavery but only in England Benjamin Franklin called out the Empire for it’s hypocrisy.
The letter is quite scathing actually.
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