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“Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question” is an essay by the Scottish writer Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881), first published anonymously in Fraser’s Magazine in December 1849. A revised version was printed in 1853 as a pamphlet entitled “Occasional Discourse on the Nigger Question”.[1] Although slavery had been abolished in the British Empire in 1833,[2] the essay presented the argument that it was inevitable that some people should have to work for others, and should be forced to do so if they were unwilling.[1]
The economist and philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) was a prominent figure in the hostile reaction provoked by Carlyle’s essay. While it would be “unwise” to assume the opinions expressed in the essay agree in every detail with Carlyle’s own views, it is clear from his other works that he would have been in agreement with the general thrust of the “Occasional Discourse”.[1]
Synopsis
The essay is presented in the form of a report of a speech “delivered by we know not whom”, written by an unreliable reporter named Dr Phelin M’Quirk. The manuscript was supposedly sold to the publisher by the reporter’s landlady, in lieu of unpaid rent after he absconded.
The unknown speaker argues against the economic system that had emerged in the wake of the abolition of slavery, particularly in the British West Indies, contending that it had led to inefficiency and a decline in productivity. Addressing the freed black slaves in the West Indies directly, he states that “you will have to be servants to those that are born wiser than you, that are born lords of you – servants to the whites”.
The speaker presents a vision of labor as a moral duty, and argues that rather than simply setting slaves free, into a world of which they have little understanding, they should instead be considered “servants hired for life”, essentially a return to a form of medieval feudalism.
Reception
Carlyle’s article caused outrage among liberals, and provoked the economist John Stuart Mill to protest in a letter to the editor of Fraser’s Magazine in 1850, first published anonymously. In it, he objected to Carlyle’s dehumanisation of people of colour and his standpoint on slavery.[3]
But Carlyle was unremorseful. His essay was published in America in 1850 under the title “West India Emancipation”, where it was praised by the pro-slavery south, and he doubled down in 1853 with a revised and expanded version titled “Occasional Discourse on the Nigger Question”. In the latter, the fictional Senator Hickory Buckskin argues that the southern states should secede from the Union and join with the West Indies to form an empire of slavery.[3]
Carlyle’s attitude to slavery accounts for the hostility he subsequently encountered during his lifetime, and the reaction to his political views since his death, culminating in accusations of fascism.[4]