Reza |1

Anika Reza
Julie Murray
ENGL 3502 E
11th April, 2008

A Tale of Two Britains:

Carlyle and Mill on Empire and Slavery in the West Indies
and its Ramifications

The Victorian period was thought to be a period of transition; a

shift from the old ways of viewing the world through religious

orthodoxy into a new way. What this new way would entail was still

undecided. Thomas Carlyle and John Stuart Mill started off as good

friends in the early 1830’s. Their friendship had started off on a

misunderstanding of each other’s philosophy with each man believing

the other to be one of his own contemporaries when the truth was

anything but. Carlyle and Mill’s beliefs and values were polar opposites

in most parts but this did not become apparent until quite a few years

into the friendship. No doubt Mill’s habit of avoiding conflict and

seeking points of agreement rather than discords perpetuated this and

Carlyle’s habit of preaching rather than conversing did not help the

matter (August xii). This friendship in time dissolved into cool distance
 Reza |2

and eventually to heated hostility. The latter part of their relationship

produced one of the most famous exchanges about race, slavery and

the British Empire. Carlyle wrote an article titled Occasional Discourse

on the Negro Question which supported a form of slavery or serfdom

for the Blacks in the West Indies and was published in 1849 in the

December issue of Fraser’s Magazine. In response Mill published The

Negro Question in the January issue which refuted Carlyle’s points and

claimed that West Indian Blacks were not inferiors to the Whites.

Carlyle’s article consists of about 5 strands of arguments which are

interwoven: the belief in the inferiority of the West Indian Blacks, the

idea of hero-worship, disbelief in philanthropy, skepticism of political

economy, and the gospel of work. Mill’s argument in turn tries to

dismantle one by one each of these arguments constructed by Carlyle.

The two articles represent a clear-cut conflict between the two most

forward thinking minds of the Victorian age; between the mystic and

the utilitarian, between the racist and the egalitarian, and between the

logical and impassioned writer (August viii-xvi). Carlyle and Mill’s

articles are not only of obvious historical significance but literary as

well. Apart from giving insight into the issues faced by British society

in the 19th century the articles have distinct literary style which further

underlines how very different Carlyle and Mill’s philosophies are. For

today’s society the article Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question

and its response The Negro Question serve to not only show us how
 Reza |3

race, empire and the idea of civilization played a large role in the

discourses of the time but it also serves as examples of two very

different types of writing styles.

The Negro question was in most part a question about slavery

since the whole debate found its inception after the emancipation of

the Blacks in the West Indies and the abolishment of slavery from the

British Empire. “Carlyle disagreed with the conclusion that slavery was

wrong because he disagreed with the assumption that under the skin,

people are all the same” (Levy 1). He argued that Blacks were "two-

legged cattle" and advised them the following: “you have to be

servants to those that are born wiser than you, that are born lords of

you…my obscure Black friends, [this] is and was always the Law of the

World” (August 32). Mill heartily disagrees with Carlyle on many

regards starting with that the difference between Blacks and Whites

stem from nature. Mill states that if Carlyle had considered laws of

external nature than he would have “escaped the vulgar error of

imputing every difference which he finds among human being to an

original difference of nature” (August 46). Mill was with the school of

thought which race differences originated not from nature but from

nurture. His example of the two trees sprung from the same stock but

exposed to very different elements illustrates his belief that Blacks of

the West Indies have unique features because of their climate and not

because of any natural inherent differences. He further refutes

 Reza |4

Carlyle’s claim that the Blacks are inferior to the Whites by talking

about the Egyptian civilization which was undoubted very complex and

which he calls a ‘negro civilization’ from which even the “Greeks learnt

their first lessons” (August 47). Carlyle and Mills two very different

points of view exemplify the views that were held by the Victorian era

public. Though today we recognize that there is more of a natural

difference, rather than a climactic one, among races, Mills

Carlyle wrote about and expanded his idea of hero-worship in his

book ‘On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History’ the premise

of which was basically that “great majority of mankind were incapable

of governing themselves” and so a choice few that were strong and

wise should steer the majority to the right path (Neff 3). Carlyle came

back to this concept in his article Occasional Discourse on the Negro

Question where he states that “before the West Indies could grow

pumpkin for any Negro…European heroism had to spend itself in the

obscure battle” thus giving all credits of progress to the White settlers.

He goes on to say how the “heroic White men” had brought the

“Negroes” out of savageries and that West-Indian Blacks would never

have evolved without the White man’s wiser nature (August 30). Thus

Carlyle concludes that since the White Man is wiser than his Black

counterparts Mill on the other hand did not subscribe to the belief

that Britain was one of the few civilized society. He took the pains to

reminds Carlyle in The Negro Question that Egyptian society had been
 Reza |5

very well advanced and civilized and that they were a negro society

believed in “representative government based on universal suffrage”

and though he agreed that many common folks may not have the

know-how to rule themselves or make proper political decisions he

attributed this to a lack of opportunity rather than an inherent

deficiency (Neff 3-9). Carlyle’s belief that

“Given education and just laws” Mil concluded, “the poorer class

would be as competent as any other class to take care of their own

personal habits and requirements” (Neff 316)

disbelief in philanthropy

skepticism of political economy

Carlyle famously labeled economics the ‘dismal science’ and

David M. Levy and Sandra J. Peart claim this is because economists

such as John Stuart Mill supported the emancipation of slaves. It was

the fact that economics assumed that all people were basically the

same and thus all entitled to liberty which led to Carlyle to label it the

‘dismal science’ (1). Carlyle’s numerous condemnation of this said

dismal science in his article points to how much it was a factor at the

time. This is unsurprising when taking into account the strong tie

between slavery and trade. Because of the emancipations of the Black

in the West Indies and the abolishment of slavery in the British Empire

the plantation owners in those regions no longer had abundant cheap

 Reza |6

labour which brought up the price of their goods and affected their

profit margin.

“Carlyle's target was…economists such as John Stuart Mill, who argued

that it was institutions, not race, that explained why some nations

were rich and others poor. Carlyle attacked Mill…for supporting the

emancipation of slaves. It was this fact—that economics assumed that

people were basically all the same, and thus all entitled to liberty—that

led Carlyle to label economics "the dismal science."”

the gospel of work

Work Cited

Carlyle, Thomas, and John S. Mill. Thomas Carlyle the Nigger Question John Stuart Mill the

Negro Question. Ed. Eugene R. August. New York: Meredith Corporation, 1971.

Levin, Michael. The Condition of England Question: Carlyle, Mill, Engels. Ipswich, Suffolk:

The Ipswich Book Company Ltd, 1998.

Levy, David M., and Sandra J. Peart. "The Secret History of the Dismal Science: Economics,

Religion, and Race in the 19th Century." The Library of Economics and Liberty. 22 Jan.
 Reza |7

2001. George Mason University, Baldwin-Wallace College. 7 Apr. 2008

<http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/LevyPeartdismal.html>.

Neff, Emery. Carlyle and Mill: an Introduction to Victorian Thought. 2nd ed. New York:

Columbia UP, 1926.