How the Federalists excited jealousy and discord, painting a “hateful picture” of the South

Carey wrote the Olive Branch to appeal to moderate Federalist farmers in New England.  He aimed his criticism at wealthy Federalist merchants and the newspapers that promoted their views. [1]

He singled out Boston, characterizing it as the “seat of discontent, complaint and turbulence.”  He noted that when the United States was at peace, Bostonians wanted war.  When the nation was at war, Bostonians wanted peace.  He argued that Boston’s commerce was “insignificant” in comparison with that of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore or Charleston, yet its political influence was greater than the four other cities combined. He noted the Bostonians exerting undue influence were “few in number.”   They were, however, wealthy, talented, energetic and influential.   Their sway, he wrote, “has brought us to the very verge of dissolution of that union, with its awful consequence, a civil war.”[2]

A handful of Federalists, Carey asserted, intentionally set out to demonize the South.  He accused these prominent Federalists of working for eighteen years to “poison the minds” of New Englanders toward Southerners.[3]  Even today, the excerpt Carey included from the Connecticut Courant, published in 1796, is shocking:

“Negroes are in all respects, except in regard to life and death, the cattle of the citizens of the southern states.  If they were good for food, the probability is, that even the power of destroying their lives would be enjoyed by their owners, as fully as it is over the lives of their cattle.  It cannot be, that their laws prohibit the owners from killing their slaves, because those slaves are human beings, or because it is a moral evil to destroy them.  If that were the case, how can they justify their being treated, in all other respects like brutes?  For it is in this point of view alone, that negroes in the southern states are considered in fact as different from cattle.  They are bought and sold—they are fed or kept hungry—they are clothed, or reduced to nakedness—they are beaten, turned out to the fury of the elements and torn from their dearest connexions, with as little remorse as if they were beasts of the field.”[4]

To write then on issue of slavery and today, racism, is to touch the third rail of American political debate.  It excites conflict and discord.  It polarizes any discussion.

Carey did not own slaves, and did not promote slavery.  He supported the American Colonization Society.[5]  He believed re-settlement in Liberia was the only way free African Americans could gain true equality.  He published the works of abolitionist Anthony Benezet in his magazine, the American Museum.[6]

What he objected to was the spirit of the writer in the Connecticut Courant, and others from New England.  He wrote:

“The unholy and demoniac spirit that inspired the writer of the…vile libel, has been from that hour to the present time incessantly employed to excite hostility between the different sections of the union.  To such horrible lengths has this spirit been carried, that many paragraphs have occasionally appeared in the Boston papers intended and calculated to excite the negroes of the southern states to rise and massacre their masters.”[7]

Appealing again to Federalist farmers, Carey noted that New England had benefited from commerce with the South.  New Englanders, he wrote, “did not feel disposed to quarrel with [Southerners] for their supposed want of a due degree of piety or morality.”  Carey argued  a “deeper game was requisite to be played.”[8]

Next:  What was the deeper game the Federalists played?
Look for it Monday, June 3