I'm reading through this article and have a question about the following passage (emphasis mine):
Many of us must remember the quarrel when it raged in America before the abolition of slavery. When the full emancipation of the Negroes was advocated, the practical people used to say that if the Negroes were no more compelled to labour by the whips of their owners, they would not work at all, and soon would become a charge upon the community. Thick whips could be prohibited, they said, and the thickness of the whips might be progressively reduced by law to half-an-inch first and then to a mere trifle of a few tenths of an inch; but some kind of whip must be maintained. And when the abolitionists said – just as we say now – that the enjoyment of the produce of one’s labour would be a much more powerful inducement to work than the thickest whip. ‘Nonsense, my friend,’ they were told – just as we are told now. ‘You don’t know human nature! Years of slavery have rendered them improvident, lazy and slavish, and human nature cannot be changed in one day. You are imbued, of course, with the best intentions, but you are quite ”unpractical”.’
Was this a real quarrel, or something that was really advocated for? My Google Fu is weak and I can't find any evidence for this claim, but I also don't know how much evidence we have from 1888. Thanks!
So I don't know, off hand, of a specific law mandating the thickness of whips being progressively phased smaller and smaller, but this does ring true in a broader sense, as there was, in the antebellum South, passage of laws in that period which regulated how slaves could be punished, as well as very strong attitudes that the threat of violence was of the utmost necessity to encourage the slave, being naturally lazy and without motivation, to do their work. You might find this answer from a recent AMA, which discusses punishment laws, to be of interest.