John Elliott Cairnes, The Slave Power (1863 2nd edition)

"I could easily prove that almost all the differences which are observed between the characters of the Americans in the Southern and Northern States have had their origin in slavery." — Tocqueville.

"If America ever undergoes great revolutions, they will be brought about by the presence of the blacks on the soil of the United States ; that is to say, it will not be equality of conditions, but, on the contrary, inequality, which will produce them." — Ibid.

"African slavery as it exists among us — the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization — this was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson, in his forecast, had anticipated this as the 'rock upon which the old Union would split.' He was right. What was conjecture with him is now a realized fact." — A. H. Stephens, Vice-president of the Southern Confederacy.

P. D. WEBB AND SON, PUINTERS, DUBLIN.

TO JOHN STUART MILL, ESQ.↩

Dear Sir,

I have great satisfaction in prefixing your name to the present work. Its appearance on my page will show that I have not engaged in speculation on an important subject without some qualification for the task. The sanction it gives to the views which I advocate will furnish an apology for the confidence with which they are urged — a confidence which, divided as opinion is on the subject of which I treat, might otherwise appear unbecoming. Lastly, the opportunity of connecting my name in public with that of one from whose works I have profited more largely than from those of any other living writer, was one which I could not easily forego.

Believe me, dear Sir,

With sincere respect,
Very truly yours,
J. E. Cairnes.

1st May, 1862.

[vii]

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.↩

It is proper that I should state the circumstances under which the present volume is offered to the public. The substance of it formed the matter of a course of lectures delivered about a year since in the University of Dublin. In selecting the subject of North American slavery I was influenced in the first instance by considerations of a purely speculative kind — my object being to show that the course of history is largely determined by the action of economic causes. To causes of this description, it seemed to me, the fortunes of slavery in North America — its establishment in one half of the Union and its disappearance from the other — were directly to be ascribed ; while to that institution, in turn, the leading differences in the character of the Northern and Southern people, as well as that antagonism of interests between the two sections which has issued in a series of political conflicts extending over half a century, were no less [viii] distinctly traceable. The course of events, however, since I first took up the subject, has given to it an interest far other than speculative, and has rendered conclusions, of which the value (if they possessed any) was little more than scientific, directly applicable to problems of immediate and momentous interest. Under these circumstances I have been induced to extend considerably the original plan of my investigations, and to give the whole subject a popular and practical treatment, in the hope of contributing something to the elucidation of a question of vast importance, not only to America, but to the whole civilized world.

The rapid movement of events, accompanied by no less rapid fluctuations in public opinion, during the progress of the work, will explain, and, it is hoped, will procure indulgence for, some obvious imperfections. Some topics, it is probable, will be found to be treated with greater fulness, and some arguments to be urged with greater vehemence, than the present position of affairs or the present state of public feeling may appear to require. For example, I have been at some pains to show that the question at issue between North and South is not one of tariffs — a thesis prescribed to me by the state of the discussion six months ago, when the affirmative of this view was pertinaciously put forward by writers in the interest of the South, but [ix] which, at the present time, when this explanation of the war appears to have been tacitly abandoned, cannot but appear a rather gratuitous task.

In a certain degree, indeed, the same remark applies to the main argument of the work ; for, in spite of elaborate attempts at mystification, the real cause of the war and the real issue at stake are every day forcing themselves into prominence with a distinctness which cannot be much longer evaded. Whatever we may think of the tendencies of democratic institutions, or of the influence of territorial magnitude on the American character, no theory framed upon these or upon any other incidents of the contending parties, however ingeniously constructed, will suffice to conceal the fact, that it is slavery which is at the bottom of this quarrel, and that on its determination it depends whether the Power which derives its strength from slavery shall be set up with enlarged resources and increased prestige, or be now once for all effectually broken. This is the one view of the case which every fresh occurrence in the progress of events tends to strengthen; and it is this which it is the object of the present work to enforce.

But, although the development of the movement may have deprived the following speculations of some of that novelty which they might have possessed when they were first delivered, still it is hoped [x] that they will not be without their use — that, while they will assist honest enquirers to form a sound judgment upon a question which is still the subject of much designed and much unconscious misrepresentation, they may possess a more permanent interest, as illustrating by a striking example the value of a fruitful but little understood instrument of historical inquiry — that which investigates the influence of material interests on the destinies of mankind.

[xi]

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.↩

The remarkable change in the position of affairs in North America, alike military and political, since the first appearance of this work, now six months ago, suggests the expediency of some remarks on offering to the public a second edition. At that time the Federal armies were triumphant at nearly all points ; the early surrender of the Confederate capital was generally looked for ; and even those who were most anxious to believe in the hopelessness of the task which the North had undertaken placed their trust, rather in the heats of a Southern summer, in the extent of the country to be conquered, and in the resources of guerilla warfare when the Northern forces should have penetrated the Cotton states, than in the ability of the South to defeat its opponent by regular military operations. No one in England at that time expected what has since occurred — the evacuation of the Southern territory by the principal Northern army [xii] as the consequence of defeats sustained in a series of pitched engagements. The writer of the present work was certainly little disposed to make light of the military qualifications of the new Confederacy ; so far from this, his main object had been to depict its formidable character — a task which he so performed as to have drawn upon him from some of his critics the charge of exaggeration ; yet it now appears that his error was of an opposite kind. The military capacity of the Slave Power has proved on trial to be greater than even those imagined who were most disposed to magnify its prowess. What is the bearing of this fact upon the following speculations ? It is this : — so far as those speculations have proceeded upon the assumption of an established military superiority in the Free States, so far they have for the present ceased to be applicable ; on the other hand, so far as their aim was to hold up to the world the new confederacy as the most formidable antagonist of civilized progress which has appeared in modern times — so far, that is to say, as the main purpose of the present work was concerned — so far, I apprehend, my position has been indefinitely strengthened by the tenor of events.

But the change in the posture of affairs has introduced a new consideration. Has the military success of the South been such as to justify us in [xiii] regarding its cause as definitively triumphant, and therefore in deprecating the further prosecution of the war by the North as a wanton waste of human life ? Let us look at the facts. Notwithstanding the succession of defeats sustained by its principal armies, almost every position of importance which the North has at any time held since the war commenced, is still in its hands. At the present moment it holds, with the exception of eastern Virginia, all the Border States, and, with the exception of Vicksburgh, and Port Hudson, the whole course of the Mississippi. It holds besides most of the principal strongholds along the eastern and southern coast. On the other hand, not a foot of free soil is in possession of any Southern army. Were peace now established on the basis of uti possidetis, the North would gain, and the South would lose, nearly all the substantial objects for which the war has been waged. So much of Southern society as is susceptible of assimilation into the political system of the Northern people would be recovered ; the Mississippi would be theirs ; the Territories would be open for free colonization. On the other hand, the Slave Power would be thrown back into the corner of a continent ; the field for its expansion would be cut off ; and the cherished dream of a slave empire, "extending from the home of Washington to the palaces of Montezuma," would, at least for the present, have vanished. It would seem, then, [xiv] that, to secure the substantial objects of the struggle, little more is necessary than that the North should make good the position which it at present holds. But it will be said that the war is carried on by the North for the specific object of restoring the Union, and that towards this end at least no real progress has been made. I grant that the restoration of the Union is still in the programme of the North — how far it is in the minds of its most thoughtful men is a different question. But conceding that the North seeks to restore the Union, and conceding also that the task of restoration is beyond its power, does it follow that there is nothing to be gained by a further prosecution of the contest ? I apprehend it is only those who have attended to the ostensible, to the neglect of the real, issues of the war who will think so. The rationale of the revolution — always plain enough to those who were acquainted with the antecedents of the struggle and not blinded by terror of democracy, but now obvious to all eyes — is, that, under the guise of a constitutional question, a great social problem is being worked out. "States' rights," says Mr. Russell, "means protection to slavery, extension of slavery, and free trade in slave products with the outer world;" and so, on the other hand, the restoration of the Union on Republican principles, means the limitation, and ultimate extinction of slavery. Whatever plausibility there might have been at one [xv] time in denying this, there is none now. The social realities have burst the shell of constitutional figments in which they were incased ; and the conflict between slave and free society has now been actually proclaimed. In view of this — the real issue at stake, will it be said that, there is nothing to be gained by a prolongation of the contest ? Let those who say so tell us upon what conditions peace would now be accepted by the South. With the actual military success which has attended its arms, with the liberal recognition which that success has met with from the nations of Europe, sustained as its cause has been by some of the leading journals of France and England,— is it to be supposed that the South, in this condition of its fortunes, would accept any terms short of those which would satisfy the known and plainly avowed purpose for which it has taken up arms ? That purpose has been to establish a Slave empire, self-sustained and capable of free expansion ; and the practical question now before the world is this — have matters arrived at that point at which this catastrophe has been proved to be inevitable — at which free society is bound to confess defeat ?

Before accepting this conclusion, let us remember what has just been stated — that, effectually to baffle the designs of the Slave Power, it is only necessary that the North should permanently make good the position which it at present holds.Is there anything [xvi] in what has occurred to afford the slightest grounds for supposing that the North is not fully competent to accomplish this ? In point of material resources its superiority to its opponent is undeniable ; so that, if the contest becomes one of endurance, it is plain that physical exhaustion must first overtake the South. The struggle may indeed be abandoned from moral exhaustion ; but the possibility of this only deepens the obligation of all who recognize in the Northern cause the cause of human freedom, to sustain by the clear expression of their sympathy and approval the spirit of the people to whom this great charge is committed. But the present aspect of affairs gives promise, I think, of a decision in favour of freedom, speedier, and therefore more humane, than that which would result from the absolute exhaustion of the weaker combatant. This will appear if we consider the peculiar character of the contest, and the conditions under which it has been waged up to the present time.

The contest is one between two forms of society, which though embodied in political systems technically identical, are in reality antithetical in all their essential qualities. In the North we find a government broadly democratic alike in form and spirit ; in the South one democratic in form, but in spirit and essence a close oligarchy. For the purpose of war each of these political systems has its [xvii] peculiar excellences and defects, its characteristic virtues and infirmities. This being so, before the superiority of either to the other, as a military agency, can be pronounced to be established, the systems, as wholes, with all their attributes alike of strength and weakness, must be submitted to the test. Now the mode in which the war has been conducted in America up to a recent time has been such as to give all the benefit of its peculiar strength, apart from its weakness, to one of the combatants, while to the other no corresponding advantage has been permitted : the weak side of the North has been brought prominently forward ; while to that of the South has been secured absolute immunity from attack. On the side of the North publicity, divided councils, popular dictation, jealousy felt by the civil towards the military power, and, what is the natural consequence of this, constant interference by the civil magistrate with the plans of the military chiefs, — the inevitable incidents of popular government - have all played their part. To these have been opposed on the side of the South, the secresy, the unity of plan, and the absolute submission to the guidance of a few capable men, which are the natural and well-known features of an oligarchical rule. The result has been what might have been anticipated. At Bull Run General Scott was forced to sanction an advance against his better judgment [xviii] in deference to the popular will. The plans of MacClellan for the peninsular campaign were known to the enemy the day after they were first discussed in a council of war ; and the combinations on which he had subsequently counted for the capture of Richmond — and which, in spite of the disadvantages under which he laboured from the premature disclosure of his plans, would, in the opinion of the best judges, have been successful, had he been permitted to carry them into effect — were all rendered nugatory by the pertinacious perversity with which the civil power interfered to defeat them. The disaster at Fredericksburgh was but a repetition of the old lesson. A movement, apparently well conceived, but which could only have been successful as a surprise, broke down through want of concert. It is neither to inferiority in the Northern soldier, nor to want of capacity in the Northern generals, that the miscarriages of the North up to the present time can fairly be attributed — the highest authority has borne testimony to the merits of both [1] — but to causes [xix] incidental to the social and political system of the Northern States. Indeed, looking at the extraordinary disadvantages under which the North has laboured in this respect in connexion with the actual [xx] results of the war, one cannot but admire the pluck, the energy, the unflinching devotion and indomitable resolution, which have been sufficient to neutralize so many blunders, and which still maintain the Federal armies, in spite of constant reverses, in the very foreground of their most advanced conquests. The miscarriages of the North, then, are to be attributed to the inevitable weakness for war of the most popular form of government which the world has seen ; and herein, I apprehend, lies solid ground for hope ; for of the attributes of popular government none is more striking than its capacity to profit by disaster. A year's experience in the Crimea was sufficient to revolutionize our own military system ; and it is strange if the campaign in the peninsula, followed by the catastrophe at Fredericksburgh, has not sufficed to teach the North the lesson, that no extent of resources can, in military affairs, supply the place of discipline, concentration of strength, and submission to a single mind — qualities of which its opponent has furnished such admirable examples, and from the want of which it has itself so lamentably suffered. [2] But there is a still surer ground of [xxi] hope. As I have just remarked, while the weak side of the North has been freely exposed, that of the South has hitherto remained secure against attack. The slaves, who would gladly have filled the ranks of the Federal armies, have hitherto, with the assent of those armies, been doing the work of their enemies. Those who should have been their allies have, as the war has been conducted, been driven into the ranks of their foes. We now see with what result. For a year the Slave Power has contended on equal terms with a nation of freemen, its match in soldierly qualities, numbering more than double its population, and commanding more than quadruple its wealth. But slave powers — great as is their capacity for war — have, fortunately for civilization and human freedom, also their vulnerable side. That side has hitherto been spared by the North : it now remains to see what will be the consequence of assailing it. The reasons which at the outset of the war restrained the Federal government from dealing this blow were natural and perhaps irresistible. The programme of the Republican party had never gone beyond the "limitation of slavery"; the conservative instincts of the Northern people were strong; [3] the attitude [xxii] of the Border states suggested compromise ; the strength and determination of the Slave Power had not yet been proved ; — finally, the responsible leaders of the nation "shrunk, as human nature will shrink, even when most sincere, from accepting in a plain form a tremendous issue." [4] But the time for temporizing has passed. To delay the blow longer would be to trifle with the dearest interests of human freedom.

That the emancipation of slaves, as a belligerent measure, is thoroughly justifiable, is to my mind as clear as any proposition in the ethics of war. It is a weapon, of which every belligerent, to whom the chance has occurred, has in turn freely availed itself — England prominently among the number. The Constitution of the United States prohibits the emancipation of slaves, as a war measure, just as much and just as little as does the Constitution of England. In each case martial law is incompatible with the [xxiii] ordinary legal rights of the citizen, but in each case a temporary recurrence to martial law may nevertheless be the only effectual means of permanently preserving those legal rights. There is indeed a difference between the authority of the Federal government under the Constitution of the United States, and the authority of a purely national government like that of England ; but the difference is not one which affects the present argument. The authority of the Federal government covers but a portion of the national life of the American people : it is a government of "enumerated powers ;" but within the range of those powers it is supreme, and, in relation to the acts to which those powers apply, it stands in precisely the same position towards every individual within the thirty-four states of the Union, as does the government of Great Britain to the individuals who compose the British nation. "A government entrusted with such ample powers," says Chief Justice Marshall, delivering the judgment of the Supreme Court, "on the due execution of which the happiness and prosperity of the people vitally depend, must also be entrusted with ample means for their execution. ... If the end be legitimate and within the scope of the Constitution, all means which are appropriate and plainly adapted to this end, and which are not prohibited by the Constitution, are lawful." The emancipation of the slaves of rebellious [xxiv] citizens is not prohibited by the Constitution, but on the contrary by very plain implication permitted, since it is provided that Congress shall have power "to make all laws that may be necessary and proper to carry into execution the foregoing powers." [5] As to the lurid pictures of servile risings which fill the visions of our pro-slavery seers, they have already been abundantly falsified by events. In many districts the white population, including the wives and children of the planters, have been absolutely at the mercy of the negroes, who, if they were the savages they are described, might have freely given the rein to their propensities ; yet up to the present time not a single outrage of the slightest moment has occurred. [6] Nor is there the least probability that, if treated with ordinary humanity, the negroes will depart from the line of cautious moderation which they have hitherto followed. "They know," says one of themelves, "that naked hands are no match for broadswords, and that grubbing hoes will be sure to go down before cannon balls. The South [xxv] was never better prepared for insurrection than now — and the slaves know it. They have no need to prove their ability to fight, by rushing into the whirlwind of uncertain and irregular war. They are now taking their places in the ranks of regular troops, and distinguishing themselves for all the qualities which are valuable in the soldier." [7] How long this moderation may last is another question, and one of not less than awful gravity. As we read the sanguinary recitals which now fill the telegrams from the Southern States, it is impossible not to recall the savage scenes which once followed similar atrocities. It is not inopportune to remark that the massacres of St. Domingo were preceded by a cold-blooded murder committed by the ruling caste on an unoffending man. A coloured officer, Colonel Oge, the bearer from the Convention of a decree, not of emancipation to the slaves, but merely conferring citizenship on the free blacks, was for no other offence than this seized by the planters, and broken on the wheel. [8] Provocation far exceeding the murder of a single innocent man has already been given to the negroes of the Southern States. A recent telegram announces that twenty of these men had been deliberately slaughtered in cold blood by the commanders of the principal Confederate [xxvi] army in the West, and for what crime ? — simply because they were found in charge of waggons belonging to the Union army — a service, which, from the commencement of the war, the negroes have not ceased to perform for the armies of the South. We have seen torrents of vituperative eloquence directed against the author of the proclamation of emancipation because of the possible evils which may flow from a measure of justice ; but against the perpetrators of this actual atrocity, and others no less black, not a single syllable of reprobation has yet been uttered by those indignant sticklers for the claims of humanity. [9] Might it not be well if they were to remind their vigorous and brilliant friends of the fate of the murderers of Oge ?

The denial to a belligerent of the right to emancipate his enemies' slaves is a position so monstrous that to expose its absurdity the facts need only to be stated.To illustrate the principle by the case [xxvii] before us, what is contended for is this: — it is claimed that the South shall be permitted to employ its slaves in forwarding in every conceivable way the business of the war — producing food and clothing for the army, raising earthworks and fortifications, transporting stores and munitions of war, doing generally the work of the camp — nay (for this has happened in some instances) actually taking part in hostile operations in the field ; while the North shall be precluded from adopting the only course which can effectually deprive its enemy of this formidable means of maintaining the contest. Services which are permitted to slave powers, when taken unjustly and by force, are to be denied to free nations when voluntarily rendered. It is not enough that "a barbarous and barbarizing" Confederacy should have extended to it the usages of civilized warfare ; a claim of privileged exemption from the liabilities of ordinary belligerents is set up on its behalf ; and free nations are required to submit to the direst blows of their formidable antagonist without daring to wrest from its grasp the weapon which deals them.

But there is another aspect than any which has yet been adverted to, under which the new policy of the Northern government well deserves to be considered. The natural complement to the military emancipation of slaves is the formation of a negro [xxviii] army ; and this, I apprehend, is the crowning result towards which the growing complications of the struggle are now rapidly converging. In a recent article in the Spectator, the policy of a negro army has been discussed in a manner which may well arrest the attention of American statesmen. Fully appreciating the abounding difficulties of the actual situation, the writer, with true political instinct, seizes upon the sole guiding clue from the bewildering maze.

"In the first place, the negro would probably supply the North as good or even a better military materiel than the mean whites supply to the South. They are quite as strong and quite as hardy, apparently quite as courageous, nearly as intelligent, much more faithful if well treated, and much more deeply habituated to that obedient attitude of mind which is the essence of military discipline. The Northern army has always been a free and easy army ; fighting bravely it is said, but also determined to exercise the right of public opinion as to the moment when they have done their share. The notion seizes them in battle that they have accomplished all that ought to be expected of them, and then no officer can force them to do more. [10] This [xxix] is not business in military affairs. The Southern troops, accustomed to an aristocratic caste, do not judge for themselves in this way. They spend themselves at the command of their officers. And thus, too, it would, in all probability, be with a negro army. Their fidelity and their respect for the white race would alike keep tight the bonds of military authority, now so loose at the North. The negroes would be Sepoys without any disposition to treachery, and with more than the Sepoy physique. Moreover, they would be even less exposed to the malaria and exhaustion of the Southern climate than the Southerners themselves. Again, the negro just released from slavery would thankfully accept low wages in the Northern army, instead of the enormous bounty and pay now claimed by every white volunteer ; and they would be as easy to satisfy with wholesome rations of any kind as the present army is hard. Every element of the soldier is to be found in the negro, unless it be natural military tastes, and this the cause now supplies. There is physical strength and a body used to unlimited hardships. There is deference of spirit, clanship as between man and man, and affectionate fidelity to superiors. There is [xxx] the willing hand without the meddling head, and the greatest of all motives for desperate valour.

"But next, a large auxiliary negro army would help to solve a great political problem. Under the President's emancipation policy a great number of negroes must be attracted northwards, and the greatest jealousy is felt by the Northern labourer lest they should reduce his normal wages. By employing them freely in the army this danger would be partially averted, and a great boon conferred upon the Northern labourer, who dreads the drafting policy of the administration. In this way the half-reluctant States of the North would be reconciled to the first steps of the emancipation policy, — and if, as we hope, the regiments thus formed should prove the most effective and best disciplined in the army, the military pride of the North would soon convert them to the President's policy, — for no susceptibilities of caste would be hurt by the glory of black regiments with white commissioned officers, — the unjust rule of war being that all display of public gratitude is lavished on the leader, however much is due to the followers.

"But not only would this policy enormously lower the cost of the army, spare the labour of the North, and reconcile the democrats to emancipation — but it might be made one of the most powerful elements [xxxi] in what we may call the foreign policy of the war ; for there would be no better means of avoiding all the dangers of servile insurrection than passing the fugitive slaves through the discipline of a military régime. The least indulgence of private licence or vindictiveness might then be punished by instant death without any undue austerity. In no way could a severer control be kept over the risks of emancipation on a large scale. And thus the natural European suspicion of all sudden emancipation would be best removed. Nor would this be all. One result of such a measure would be still more important. A negro army once established would probably become the nucleus of the permanent military system of the North, — and so a most important check upon the South. Of course, we are assuming what all Englishmen now assume, that absolute subjugation of the South is a dream, that the war is a question of boundaries, — a question, as mathematicians would say, of the maximum or minimum extent of the Slave Power. Now, assuming this, what could be more important, more decisive for the slavery policy of the South, than the existence of a negro army across the border, — capable of large increase, and ready and eager to act in all causes directly involving the extension or limitation of slavery ? The knowledge of such a [xxxii] fact would be by far the most effective check on slavery propagandism that could be exerted by the agency of human fear.

"In whatever light we contemplate the question, the principles involved in the creation of a negro army seem to us most pregnant of weighty result and gradual political transformations." [11]

With regard to the new matter in the present edition, I have a few words to say. It is, for the most part, introduced in expansion of topics which found a place in the former edition, but of which the course of events or of discussion, since its publication, has suggested the expediency of a fuller treatment. Besides additions of this nature, a considerable body of evidence will be found in the notes and appendices, chiefly, it will be observed, drawn from Southern sources. Much of this will doubtless be familiar to those who have already studied the social condition of the Southern States ; but, in the present state of opinion concerning Southern institutions, it has been thought advisable to supply the reader, as far as possible, with the means of verifying the accuracy of statements of fact. To one document, which will be found in the Appendix, I wish particularly to call attention — The Philosophy of Secession, by the Hon. L. W. [xxxiii] Spratt. Mr. Spratt is the editor of the Charleston Mercury, one of the most influential papers in the South. He represented Charleston in that South Carolina Convention which led the way in the secession movement ; and the confidence reposed in him by the people of South Carolina may be inferred from the fact, that he was one of the commissioners appointed by that — the leading secession state — in the most critical juncture of its history to expound its views before the other insurgent conventions. We learn from the Hon. Andrew J. Hamilton, of Texas, that Mr. Spratt's essay has been "reproduced in the leading prints of the South, and spoken of in terms of commendation, and that up to this hour no man has lifted up his voice in criticism against any of the positions there assumed." "I have heard," adds Mr. Hamilton, "the echoes of these sentiments in the streets, in the hotels, and at the festive board." A statement of the central idea involved in secession proceeding from a writer occupying the position of Mr. Spratt, and which has received the sanction of the Southern press and of Southern society, cannot but deserve the attention of those who would understand the real meaning of the American revolution. I desire no better justification for all that I have said respecting the character and aims of the Slave Power than is furnished by Mr. Spratt's essay.

[xxxiv]

One further remark I wish to make. Since the publication of the first edition of the present work, the aspect of affairs in America has undergone a vast change : in no instance have I attempted to meet this change by any modification of the positions originally assumed in this essay. If the course of events has tended in any degree to weaken the general force of my argument, I am prepared to accept the loss of credit which may on this account fairly attach to my speculations. It is my conviction, however, that experience has greatly strengthened all its principal positions. One fact will perhaps appear inconsistent with this statement — the triumph of the democratic party at the recent elections ; — an occurrence which may be thought to militate against the expectation which I have expressed of a rapid growth of anti-slavery sentiment in the North. But in truth it warrants no inference of the kind. The significance of the democratic triumphs, as interpreted by the whole Northern press, is simply this — distrust of the competency of the administration, and dissatisfaction with the management of the war. The occurrence is one of the same kind as a change of government from the Whigs to the Tories would have been in this country during the agony of the Crimean conflict. Had this occurred, no one acquainted with political parties here would have regarded it as an indication [xxxv] that liberal principles had retrograded in England. It would have signified simply a demand for a more energetic prosecution of the war ; and this is also the explanation of the Republican defeats. There is moreover another consideration which should be taken account of in attempting to estimate the significance of these party gains and losses. Under the influence of the logic of events, opinion in America is rapidly moving away from the old political landmarks. In a pamphlet just issued from the New York press, which I have now before me, the emancipation proclamation is vigorously defended by a writer, "called by some a pro-slavery man," and who, as he tells us, "at the last state senatorial election voted for the democratic candidate." On the other hand, as we learn from the correspondent of the Daily News, there are "Republicans pure, who are heart and soul in the war, and ready to sacrifice their last son and last cent in order to bring it to an honourable conclusion, who have voted for Seymour in sheer weariness of disgust." [12]

[xxxvi]

But it is idle to dwell upon such incidents as these with the broad facts of the past year before us. Let me here briefly enumerate them. Slavery has been abolished in the District of Columbia. It has been excluded from the Territories. An effective anti-slave-trade treaty has been negotiated with Great Britain. The President, for the first time in the history of the United States, has propounded a scheme for universal emancipation. Two slave states have returned members to Congress pledged to an emancipation policy. The legislature of one slave state has voted emancipation by immense majorities. Lastly, the President, in his capacity of commander-in-chief has proclaimed immediate emancipation in all the insurgent states, and has authorized the raising of a negro army. These are the grand achievements of the Northern States in the past year — the monuments of a revolution — fearful as is the cost at which its results have been obtained — as hopeful and as rapid as any which the history of mankind records.

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. THE CASE STATED.↩

Those who have followed the discussions in this country on the American contest are aware that the view taken of that event by the most influential organs of the English press has, during the period which has elapsed since its commencement, undergone considerable modification. The first announcement by South Carolina of its intention to secede from the Union was received in this country with simple incredulity. There were no reasons, it was said, for secession. What the constitution and laws of the United States had been on the eve of Mr. Lincoln's election, that they were on its morrow. It was absurd to suppose that one half of a nation should separate from the other because a first magistrate had been elected in the ordinary constitutional course.The agitation for secession was therefore [2] pronounced to be a political feint intended to cover a real movement in some other direction. But when the contest had passed beyond its first stages, when the example set by South Carolina was followed by the principal States of the extreme South with a rapidity and decision shewing evident concert, when the treacherous seizure of Fort Moultrie in Charleston harbour gave further significance to the votes of the conventions, when lastly the attack on Fort Sumpter awoke the North, as one man, to arms, belief in the reality of the movement could no longer be withheld, and speculation was directed to the causes of the catastrophe. The theory at first propounded was nearly to this effect. Commercial and fiscal differences were said to be at the bottom of the movement. The North fancied she had an interest in protection ; the South had an obvious interest in free trade. On this and other questions of less moment North and South came into collision, and the antagonism thus engendered had been strengthened and exacerbated by a selfish struggle for place and power — a struggle which the constitution and political usages of the Americans rendered more rancorous and violent than elsewhere. But in the interests of the two sections, considered calmly and apart from selfish ends, there was nothing, it was said, which did not admit of easy adjustment, nothing which negotiation was not far more competent [3] to deal with than the sword. As for slavery, it was little more than a pretext on both sides, employed by the leaders of the South to arouse the fears and hopes of the slaveholders, and by the North in the hope of attracting the sympathies of Europe and hallowing a cause which was essentially destitute of noble aims. The civil war was thus described as having sprung from narrow and selfish views of sectional interests (in which, however, the claims of the South were coincident with justice and sound policy), and sustained by passions which itself had kindled ; and the combatants were advised to compose their differences, and either return to their political partnership, or agree to separate and learn to live in harmony as independent allies.

With the progress of events these views have undergone some change, principally in excluding more completely than at first from the supposed causes of the movement the question of slavery, and in bringing more prominently into view the right of nations to decide on their own form of political existence as identified with the cause of the South. "It is a struggle," said the Foreign Minister, "for empire on the one side and for independence on the other.""The watchword of the South," said the Times [13] "is Independence, of the North Union, and in these two war-cries the real issue is contained."

[4]

That there is much plausibility in this view of the American crisis for those who have no more knowledge of American history than is possessed by the bulk of educated men in this country needs not be denied. Superficial appearances, perhaps we should say the facts most immediately prominent, give it some support. The occasion on which secession was proclaimed was the election of a Republican president, who, far from being the uncompromising champion of abolition, had declared himself ready to maintain the existing régime of slavery with the whole power of the Federal government. On the retirement of the Southern representatives and senators from Congress, the Republican party became supreme in the legislature ; and in what way did they employ this suddenly acquired power ? In passing a law for the abolition of slavery in the Union ? or even in repealing the odious Fugitive Slave Law ? Nothing of the kind ; but in passing the Morrill tariff — in enacting a measure by which they designed to aggrandize the commercial population of the North at the expense of the South.

Since the breaking out of hostilities, again, some of the most salient acts of the drama have only tended to confirm the view which these occurrences would suggest. When slaves have escaped to the Federal army, instead of being received by the general with open arms as brothers for whose freedom he is [5] fighting, they have been placed upon the footing of property, and declared to be contraband of war. When a Federalist general, transcending his legitimate powers, issues a proclamation declaring that slaves shall be free, it is not a proclamation of freedom to slaves as such, but only to the slaves of "rebels," while no sooner is this half-hearted act of manumission known at head-quarters than it is disavowed and over-ruled.

All this, and more to the same purpose, may be urged, as it has been urged, in favour of the view of the American crisis taken by some leading organs of the English press ; yet I venture to say that never was a historical theory raised on a more fragile foundation ; never was an explanation of a political catastrophe propounded in more daring defiance of all the great and cardinal realities of the case with which it professed to deal.

One is tempted to ask, whether those who thus expound American politics suppose the present crisis to be an isolated phenomenon in American history, disconnected from all the past ; or, to look at the question from another point of view, whether they imagine that the coincidence of the political division of parties with the geographical division of slave and free states is an accident — that, to borrow the expression of Jefferson, "a geographical line coinciding with a marked principle" has no significance.[6] It seems almost trifling with the reader to remind him that the present outbreak is but the crowning result, the inevitable climax of the whole past history of American politics — the catastrophe foreseen with more or less distinctness by all the leading statesmen of America, from Washington to Webster and Clay, which was the constant theme of their forebodings, and to escape or defer which was the great problem of their political lives. And equally superfluous does it seem to mention what was the grand central question in that history — the question to which all others were subordinate, and around which all political divisions ranged themselves. [14]

[7]

Never surely was the unity of a national drama better preserved. From the year 1819 down to the present, time the history of the United States has been one record of aggressions by the Slave Power,[8] feebly, and almost always unsuccessfully, resisted by the Northern States, and culminating in the present war. At the time of the revolution, as is well known, slavery was regarded by all the great founders of the Republic, whether Northern or Southern men, as essentially an immoral system : it was, indeed, recognized by the Constitution, but only as an[9] exceptional practice, a local and temporary fact. In the unsettled territory then belonging to the Union it was by a special ordinance prohibited. Even in 1819, although in the interval the Slave Power had pushed its dominion and pretensions far beyond their original limits, the claim was scarcely advanced for slavery to rank as an equal with free institutions in any district where it was not already definitively established, and certainly no such claim was acknowledged. Of this the Missouri Compromise affords the clearest proof, since, regarded as a triumph by the slaveowners, it only secured the admission of slavery to Missouri on the express condition that it should be confined for the future to the territory south of a certain parallel of latitude. But what has been the career of the Slave Power since that time ? It is to be traced through every questionable transaction in foreign and domestic politics in which the United States has since taken part — through the Seminole war, through the annexation of Texas, through the Mexican war, through filibustering expeditions under Walker, through attempts upon Cuba? through the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, through Mr. Clay's compromises, through the repudiation of the Missouri Compromise so soon as the full results of that bargain had been reaped, through the passing of the Nebraska Bill and the legislative establishment of the principle of "Squatter Sovereignty,"[10] through the invasion of Kansas, through the repudiation of "Squatter Sovereignty" when that principle had been found unequal to its purposes, and lastly, through the Dred Scott decision and the demand for protection of slavery in the Territories— pretensions which, if admitted, would have converted the whole Union, the Free States no less than the Territories, into one great domain for slavery. This has been the point at which the Slave Power, after a series of successful aggressions, carried on during forty years, has at length arrived. It was on this last demand that the Democrats of the North broke off from their Southern allies — a defection which gave their victory to the Republicans, and directly produced the civil war. And now we are asked to believe that slavery has no vital connexion with this quarrel, but that the catastrophe is due to quite other causes — to incompatibility of commercial interests, to uncongeniality of social tastes, to a desire for independence, to anything but slavery.

But we are told that in this long career of aggression the extension of slavery has only been employed by the South as a means to an end, and that it is in this end we are to look for the key to the present movement. "Slavery," it seems, "is but a surface question in American politics." [15] The seeming aggressions were in reality defensive movements [11] forced upon the South by the growing preponderance of the Free States ; and its real object, as well in its former career of annexation and conquest, as in its present efforts to achieve independence, has been constantly the same — to avoid being made the victim of Yankee rapacity, to secure for itself the development of its own resources unhindered by protective laws. [16]

Let us briefly examine this theory of the secession movement. And, first, if free trade be the object of the South, why, we may ask, has it not employed its power to accomplish this object during its long period of predominance in the Union ? It has been powerful enough to pass and repeal the Missouri Compromise, to annex Texas, to spend 40,000,000 dollars of Federal money in a war for the recapture of slaves, to pass the Fugitive Slave Law, to obtain the Dred Scott decision : if it has been able to accomplish these results, to lead the North into foreign complications in which it had no interest, and to force upon it measures to which it was strongly averse, is it to be supposed that it could not, had it so desired, have carried a free trade tariff? Yet not only has the South not attempted this during its long reign, it has even co-operated effectively in the passing of protective measures — nay, these enthusiastic free [12] traders have not hesitated, when the opportunity offered, to profit by protective measures. With the exception of the Morrill tariff, Congress never passed a more highly protective law than the tariff of 1842 ; and this tariff was supported by a large number of Southern statesmen ; and, not only so, but gave effective protection to Southern products — to the sugar of Louisiana, the hemp of Kentucky, and the lead of Missouri, as well as to the manufactures of New England. [17]

Again, if free trade be the real object of the South, how does it happen that, having submitted to the tariffs of 1832, [18] 1842, and 1846, it should have resorted to the extreme measure of secession while under the tariff of 1857 — a comparatively [13] free-trade law? From 1842 down to 1860 the tendency of Federal legislation was distinctly in the direction of free trade. The most liberal tariff the Union ever enjoyed since 1816 was the tariff of 1857, and it was while this tariff was in force that the plot of secession was hatched, matured, and carried into operation. But there are some who would have us believe that it was the Morrill tariff which produced the revolt ; and this is the most incomprehensible portion of the whole case ; since there is nothing more certain than that secession had been resolved upon, and the plot for its accomplishment traitorously prepared, before the Morrill tariff was brought forward, and even before the bargain with Pennsylvania was struck, in fulfilment of which it was introduced. It is indeed well known that it was the absence from Congress of the Southern senators while carrying out the programme of secession, which alone rendered possible the passing of this measure. If free trade were the prime object of the South, why did its senators withdraw from their posts precisely at the time when their presence was most required to secure their cherished principle ? Nay, if this was their game, why did they not apply to Mr. Buchanan to veto the Bill — Mr. Buchanan, the creature and humble tool of the Slave Party ? We are asked by this theory to believe that the South has had recourse to civil war, [14] has incurred the risk of political annihilation, to accomplish an object for the effectual attainment of which its ordinary constitutional opportunities afforded ample means. [19]

But the difficulties of this theory do not end here. If the secession movement be a revolt against protective tariffs, why is it confined to the Southern States ? The interest of the Cotton States in free exchange with foreign countries is not more obvious than that of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin. No class in these States has anything to gain by protective measures : nothing is produced in them which is endangered by the freest competition with the rest of the world : an artificial enhancement of European manufactures is to them as pure an injury as it is to South Carolina or Alabama : yet all these States are ranged on the side of the North in this contest, and resolute for the suppression of the revolt

[15]

It is, however, by the watch word of "independence," still more than by that of free trade, that the partisans of the South in this country have sought to enlist our sympathies in favour of that cause. We are told of the naturalness, the universality, the strength of the desire for self-government. We are reminded of the peculiar power of this passion among the Anglo-Saxon race. The act of the original thirteen States in severing their connexion with the mother country is dwelt upon ; and we are asked why the South should not also be permitted to determine for itself the mode of its political existence ? "It threatens none, demands nothing, attacks no one, but wishes to rule itself, and desires to be 'let alone :'" why should this favour be denied it ? Now let it at once be conceded that the right to an independent political existence is the most sacred right of nations : still even this right must justify itself by reference to the ends for which it is employed. The demand of a robber or murderer for "independence" is not a claim which we are accustomed to respect ; and it does not appear how our obligations are altered if the demand proceed from a robber or murderer nation — if national independence be sought solely and exclusively as a means of carrying out designs which are nothing less than robbery and murder on a gigantic scale. I am assuming [16] that these crimes are involved in the extension of slavery, and that the extension of slavery is the end for which the Southern Confederacy has engaged in the present war. These assumptions I hope to make good hereafter ; but meanwhile, it may be asked, if the extension of the domain of slavery be not the object for which the South seeks independence, what is that object? Let those who have undertaken the defence of that body explain to us in what way the legitimate development of the Southern States, within their proper limits, was hindered by Federal restraints ? If they had grievances to complain of, why did they not let the world know them ? Why did they resist all the efforts of the Northern States to extract from them a categorical statement of what they sought? "That," says an able writer, "was precisely what it was impossible to obtain from the representatives and senators of the extreme South. They steadily refused to make known, even under the form of an ultimatum, the conditions on which they would consent to remain in the Union. Their invariable response was that, it was too late ; their constituents would acquiesce in no arrangement." [20] Before then we allow ourselves to be carried away by the cry of the South for independence, it is material to ascertain the purpose for which independence is desired. It is [17] important to distinguish between (to quote the words of the eminent man whose name has been prefixed to this volume) "the right to rebel in defence of the power to tyrannize," and "the right to resist by arms a tyranny practised over ourselves."

The causes and character of the American contest are not for Englishmen questions of merely speculative interest. On the view which we take of this great political crisis will depend, not alone our present attitude towards the contending parties, but in no small degree our future relations with a people of our own race, religion and tongue, to whom has been committed the task, under whatever permanent form of polity, to carry forward in the other hemisphere the torch of knowledge and of civilization. We may, according as we act from sound knowledge of the real issues which are at stake, or in ignorance of them, do much to promote or to defeat important human interests bound up with the present contest, and to increase or to diminish the future influence for good of this country. It would indeed be a grievous misfortune if, in one of the great turning points of human history, Great Britain were found to act a part unworthy of the position which she occupies and of the glorious traditions which she inherits.

The present essay is intended as a contribution towards the diffusion of sound ideas upon this subject. The real and sufficient cause of the present [18] position of affairs in North America appears to the writer to lie in the character of the Slave Power — that system of interests, industrial social and political, springing from slavery, which for the greater part of half a century has directed the career of the American Union, and which now, embodied in the Southern Confederation, seeks admission as an equal member into the community of civilized nations. In the following pages an attempt will be made to resolve this system into its component elements, to trace the connexion of the several parts with each other, and of the whole with the foundation on which it rests, and to estimate generally the prospects which it holds out to the people who compose it, as well as the influence it is likely to exercise on the interests of other nations ; and, if I do not greatly mistake the purport of the considerations which shall be adduced, their effect will be to show that this Slave Power constitutes the most formidable antagonist to civilized progress which has appeared for many centuries, representing a system of society at once retrograde and aggressive, a system which, containing within it no germs from which improvement can spring, gravitates inevitably towards barbarism, while it is impelled by exigencies, inherent in its position and circumstances, to a constant extension of its territorial domain. The vastness of the interests at stake in the American contest, regarded under [19] this aspect, appears to me to be very inadequately conceived in this country ; and the purpose of the present work is to bring forward this view of the case more prominently than has yet been done.

But it is necessary here to guard against a misapprehension. The view that the true cause of the American contest is to be found in the character and aims of the Slave Power, though it connects the war ultimately with slavery, as its radical cause, by no means involves the supposition that the motive of the North in taking up arms has been the abolition of slavery. Such certainly has not been its motive, and, if we keep in view its position as identified with legal government and constitutional rights in the United States, we shall see that this motive, even had it existed, could scarcely, at least in the outset, have been allowed to operate. Let us recall for a moment the mode in which the crisis developed itself. It must be remembered — what seems now almost to be forgotten — that the war was commenced by the South — commenced for no other reason, on no other pretext, than because a Republican president was elected in the ordinary constitutional course. If we ask why this was made the ground for revolt, I believe the true answer, as I have just intimated, is to be found in the aims of the Slave Power, — aims which were inconsistent with its remaining in the Union while the Government was[20] carried on upon the principle of restricting the extension of its domain. So long as it was itself the dominant party, so long as it could employ the powers of the Government in propagating its peculiar institution and consolidating its strength, so long it was content to remain in the Union ; but from the moment when, by the constitutional triumph of the Republicans, the government passed into the hands of a party whose distinctive principle was to impose a limit on the further extension of slavery, from that moment its continuance in the Union was incompatible with its essential objects, and from that moment the Slave Power resolved to break loose from Federal ties. The war had thus its origin in slavery : nevertheless the proximate issue with which the North had to deal was not slavery, but the right of secession. For the constitution having recognised slavery within the particular states, so long as the South confined its proceedings within its own limits, the Government which represented the constitution could take no cognizance of its acts. The first departure from constitutional usage by the South was the act of secession, [21] and it was on the question, [21] therefore, of the right to adopt this course that the North was compelled to join issue.

The contest, thus springing from slavery, and involving, as will be shewn, consequences of the most momentous kind in connexion with the future well-being of the human race in North America, wore the appearance, to persons regarding it from the outside, of a struggle upon a point of technical construction — -a question of law which it was sought to decide by an appeal to arms. It was not [22] unnatural, then, that the people of this country, who had but slight acquaintance with the antecedents of the contest or with the facts of the case, should wholly misconceive the true nature of the issues at stake, and, disconnected as the quarrel seemed to have become from the question of slavery, should allow their sympathies, which had originally gone with the North, to be carried, under the skilful management of Southern agency acting through the press of this country, round to the Southern side. [22] Nevertheless, had the cause of the North, regarded even from this point of view, been fairly put before the English people, it is difficult to believe that it would not have been recognized as founded, at least in its first phase, in reason and justice. When the South forced on a contest by attacking the Federal forts, what was Mr. Lincoln to do ? Before acquiescing in its demand for separation, was he not at least bound to ascertain that that demand represented the real wish of the Southern people ? But, after war had been proclaimed, or rather commenced, by the South, how was this to be done otherwise than by accepting the challenge ? Was the Government at once to lower the standard of law before that of revolution without even inquiring by whom the revolution was supported ? But in truth the President's case was much stronger [23] than this. The Government was in possession of evidence which at least rendered it very probable that at this time the separatists were in a minority in the South, even in those places where they were believed to be strongest. At the presidential election which had just been held, the votes for the unionist candidates in the states of the extreme South exceeded those for the candidate who represented the secession ; in the intermediate states, the unionist votes formed two-thirds of the constituency ; in Missouri, three-fourths. [23] Will it be said that, with such facts before him, which were surely a safer criterion of Southern feeling than the votes of conventions obtained under mob-terrorism, Mr. Lincoln should at once have acquiesced in the demand for secession, and quietly permitted the consummation of a conspiracy, which, for deliberate treachery, betrayal of sacred trusts, and shameless and gigantic fraud, has seldom been matched ? To have done so, would have been to have written himself down before the world as incompetent — [24] nay, as a traitor to the cause which he had just sworn to defend.

The right of secession became thus by force of circumstances the ostensible ground of the war ; and with the bulk of the Northern people it must be admitted it was not only the ostensible but the real ground ; for it is idle to claim for the North a higher or more generous principle of conduct than that which itself put forward. The one prevailing and overpowering sentiment in the North, so soon as the designs of the South were definitively disclosed, was undoubtedly the determination to uphold the Union, and to crush the traitors who had conspired to dissolve it. In this country we had looked for something higher ; we had expected, whether reasonably or not, an anti-slavery crusade. We were disappointed ; and the result was, as has been stated, a re-action of sentiment which has prevented us from doing justice to that which was really worthy of admiration in the Northern cause. I say "worthy of admiration"; for the spectacle which the North presented at the opening of the war was such as I think might well have called forth this feeling. It was the spectacle of a people, which, having long bent its neck before a band of selfish politicians, and been dragged by them through the mire of shameless transactions, had suddenly recovered the consciousness of its [25] power and responsibilities, and, shaking itself free from their spell, stood erect before the men who had enthralled its conscience and its will. A community, the most eager in the world in the chase after gain, forgot its absorbing pursuit ; parties, a moment before arrayed against each other in a great political contest, laid aside their party differences ; a whole nation, merging all private aims in the single passion of patriotism, rose to arms as a single man : and this for no selfish object, but to maintain the integrity of their common country and to chastise a band of conspirators, who, in the wantonness of their audacity, had dared to attack it. The Northern people, conscious that it had risen above the level of ordinary motives, looked abroad for sympathy, and especially looked to England. It was answered with cold criticism and derision. The response was perhaps natural under the circumstances, but undoubtedly not more so than the bitter mortification and resentment which that response evoked.

The prevailing idea that inspired the Northern rising was, I have said, the determination to uphold the Union. Still it would be a great mistake to suppose that this idea represented the whole significance of the movement, even so far as this was to be gathered from the views of the North. While loyalty to the Union pervaded and held together all [26] classes, another sentiment — the sentiment of hostility to slavery — though less widely diffused, was strongly entertained by a considerable party, and came more directly into collision than the unionist feeling with the real aims of the seceders. "The abolitionists," conventionally so known, formed indeed a small band. With them slavery was not an evil merely, but a sin, and, as such, to be got rid of at any cost — even, were it necessary, at that of national dissolution. In strict consistency with this view they had, while the South was yet dominant, repudiated the constitution, branding it as "a league with death and a covenant with hell," and advocated separation, as, in the condition of affairs which then prevailed, the only practicable escape from the contaminating influence of the sin which they denounced. But the triumph of the Republican party wrought an immediate change in the policy of the abolitionists ; and, from being the advocates of separation, they now threw themselves with ardour into a war for the maintenance of the Union. For this they have been reproached with inconsistency. In truth, however, they have merely changed their tactics to meet a change in the position of affairs. From their original aim they have never swerved, and they now support the war as the most effectual means of advancing that aim by breaking with slavery for ever. With true instinct they feel that, secession [27] having been undertaken for the purpose of extending slavery, the most effectual means to defeat that purpose is to defeat secession. The anti-slavery feeling, however, prevails far beyond the bounds of the party known as "abolitionists" ; though it is important to observe that, on passing these bounds, the sentiment changes its character. By the mass of the Republicans slavery is regarded as a great evil, but their objection to it rests not on moral, but on social and political grounds. Had the South been content to maintain its institution within the limits of its proper domain, slavery in the present state of public morality in the North, would have had nothing to apprehend from any considerable Northern party ; but the aggressive tendencies of the Slave Power having brought it into collision with important interests in the Free States, a political and social antagonism has been developed — an antagonism which, as distinguished from the high moral ground taken by the abolitionists proper, forms the basis of anti-slavery feeling, such as it exists among the mass of the Republican party. The anti-slavery policy, therefore, of these two sections rests upon distinct grounds ; but the course of events tends constantly to bring them into closer relations. They have now begun to act habitually together, and for practical purposes may be regarded as constituting a single party. Now it is these [28] men, and not the mere unionists, whose opinions form the natural antithesis to the aims of the seceders. Between these and the South there can be no compromise; and, conformably to the law which invariably governs revolutions, they are the party who are rapidly becoming predominant in the North. Already the anti-slavery feeling is fast gaining on the mere unionist feeling, and bids fair ultimately to supersede it. In the anti-slavery ranks are now to be found men who but a year ago were staunch supporters of slavery. Anti-slavery orators are now cheered to the echo by multitudes who but a year ago hooted and pelted them : they have forced their way into the stronghold of their enemies, and William Lloyd Garrison lectures in New York itself with enthusiastic applause. The antislavery principle thus tends constantly, under the influences which are in operation, to become more powerful in the North ; and it is this fact which justifies the view of those who have predicted that it is only necessary the war should continue long enough in order that it be converted into a purely abolition struggle.

These considerations will enable the reader to perceive how, while the North has arisen to uphold the Union in its integrity, slavery is yet the true cause of the war, and that the real significance of the war is its relation to slavery. I think, too, they [29] must be held to afford a complete justification of the North in its original determination to maintain the Union. But this is scarcely now the practical question. There was, at the first, reason to believe that a very considerable element of population favourable to the Union existed in the South. While this was the case, it was no less than the duty of the Federal government to rescue these citizens from the tyranny of a rebel oligarchy. But do grounds for that supposition still exist ? Before the war broke out, it is well known that something like a reign of terror prevailed in the South for all who fell short of the most extreme standard of pro-slavery opinion. The rigour of that reign, as we know from recent revelations, [24] has not been relaxed since the war commenced, and must no doubt have produced a very considerable emigration of loyal citizens. The infectious enthusiasm of the war will probably have operated to make many converts; and, under the influences of both these causes, the South, or at least that portion of the South which has led the way in this movement, has probably by this time been brought to a substantial unanimity of opinion, a conclusion which is strongly confirmed by the absence of any sign of disaffection to the [30] Confederation among its population. [25] Under these circumstances what is the policy to which Europe, in the interests of civilization, should give its moral support ? This country has long made up its mind as to the impossibility of forcibly reconstructing the Union ; perhaps it has also satisfied itself of the undesirableness of this result. Of neither of these opinions is the writer prepared to contest the soundness. But this being conceded, an all-important question remains for decision. On what conditions is the independence of the South to be established ? For the solution of this question in the interests of civilization, a knowledge of the character and designs of the power which represents the South is requisite, and it is this which it is the aim of the present work to furnish. Meanwhile, however, it may be said that the definitive severance of the Union is perfectly compatible with either the accomplishment of the original design of the seceders — the extension of slavery, or the utter defeat of that design, according to the terms on which the separation takes place ; and that therefore the severance of the Union by no means implies the defeat of [31] the North or the triumph of the South. The Southern leaders may be assumed to know their own objects, and to be the best judges of the means which are necessary to their accomplishment ; and we may be certain that no arrangement which involves the frustration of these objects will be acquiesced in until after a complete prostration of their strength. If this be so, it is important to ascertain what the objects of the South are. For if these objects be inconsistent with the interests of civilization and the happiness of the human race (and I shall endeavour to show that this is the case), then no settlement of the American dispute which is not preceded by a thorough humbling of the slave party should be satisfactory to those who have human interests at heart. This is the cardinal point of the whole question. The designs of the seceders are either legitimate and consistent with human interests, or the contrary. If they are legitimate, let this be shown, and let us in this case wish them God speed ; if they are not, and if the Southern leaders may be taken to know what is essential to their own ends, then we may be sure that nothing short of the effectual defeat of the South in the present war will secure a settlement which shall be consistent with what the best interests of mankind require.

[32]

CHAPTER II. THE ECONOMIC BASIS OF SLAVERY.↩

Before proceeding to an examination of the social and political system which has been reared upon the basis of slavery in North America, it will be desireable to devote some consideration to the institution itself in its industrial aspects. The political tendencies of the Slave Power, as will hereafter be seen, are determined in a principal degree by the economic necessities under which it is placed by its fundamental institution ; and in order, therefore, to appreciate the nature of those tendencies, a determination of the conditions requisite for the success of slavery, as an industrial system, becomes indispensable.

The form in which it will be most convenient to discuss this question will be in connexion with the actual position of slavery in the American continent. As is well known, the system formed originally a common feature in all the Anglo-Saxon settlements in that part of the world, existing in the northern no less than the southern colonies, in New England no less than in Virginia. But before much time had elapsed from their original foundation, it [33] became evident that it was destined to occupy very different positions among these rising communities. In the colonies north of Delaware Bay slavery rapidly fell into a subordinate place, and gradually died out ; while in those south of that inlet its place in the industrial system became constantly more prominent, until ultimately it has risen to a position of paramount importance in that region, overpowering every rival influence, and moulding all the phenomena of the social state into conformity with its requirements. The problem, then, which I propose to consider is the cause of this difference in the fortunes of slavery in these different portions of American soil.

Several theories have been advanced in explanation of the phenomenon. One of these attributes it to diversity of character in the original founders of the communities in question ; [26] for, though proceeding from the same country and belonging to the same race, the Anglo-Saxon emigrations to North America, according as they were directed to the north or south of that continent, were in the main drawn from different classes of the mother nation. Massachusetts and the other New England States were colonized principally from the elite of the middle [34] and lower classes — by people who, being accustomed to labour with their own hands, would feel less the need of slaves ; and who, moreover, owing to their political views, having little to hope for in the way of assistance from the country they had quitted, would have little choice but to trust to their personal exertions. On the other hand, the early emigration to Virginia, Maryland, and the Carolinas was for the most part composed of the sons of the gentry, whose ideas and habits but ill fitted them for a struggle with nature in the wilderness. Such emigrants had little disposition to engage personally in the work of clearance and production ; nor were they under the same necessity for this as their brethren in the North ; for, being composed in great part of cavaliers and loyalists, they were favourites with the government at home, and, for many years after the establishment of the settlements, received from its paternal care, not merely capital in the shape of constant supplies of provisions and clothing, but labourers in the shape of convicts, indented servants, and slaves. In this way the colonists of the Virginian group were relieved from the necessity of personal toil, and in this way, it is said, slavery, which found little footing in the North, and never took firm root there, became established in the Southern States.

This explanation, however, carries us but a short [35] way towards the point we have in view. It explains the more rapid extension of slavery in early times in the colonies which were in their origin most patronized by the home government, but it does not explain why slavery, which had, though not extensively, been introduced into the Northern colonies, should not have subsequently increased ; much less does it afford any explanation of its ultimate extinction in the North. It is certain the New Englanders were not withheld from employing slaves by moral scruples, and, if the system had been found suitable to the requirements of the country, it is to be presumed that they would have gradually extended its basis, and that, like their neighbours, especially since the treaty of Utrecht had secured for English enterprise the African slave-trade, they would have availed themselves of this means of recruiting their labour market.

Another and more generally accepted solution refers the phenomenon in question to the influence of climate and the character of the negro race. The European constitution, we are told, cannot endure a climate in which the negro can toil, thrive, and multiply, and the indolence of the negro is such that he will only work under compulsion. If it were not, therefore, for negro slavery, the world must have gone without those commodities which are the peculiar product of tropical climes. Mankind, in effect, [36] says this theory, has had to choose between maintaining slavery and abandoning the use of cotton, tobacco, and sugar, and the instincts of humanity have succumbed before the more powerful inducements of substantial gain. [27]

It would, perhaps, be too much to say that this view of the causes which have maintained slavery in the Southern districts of North America is absolutely destitute of foundation, but there can be no hesitation in saying that, as a theory, it utterly fails to account for the facts which it is sought to explain. [37] The climate of the oldest of the Slave States — Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, North and South Carolina — is remarkably genial and perfectly suited to the industry of Europeans ; [28] and, though the same is not true in the same degree of the Gulf States, yet it is a fact that these regions also afford examples of free European communities increasing in numbers under a semi-tropical climate, and rising to opulence through the labour of their own hands. In Texas a nourishing colony of free Germans, among whom no slave is to be found, engage in all the occupations of the country, and are only prevented by their distance from the great navigable rivers, and the want of other means of communication, from applying themselves extensively to that very cultivation — the growing of cotton — which the complacent reasoners whose theory we are considering choose to regard as the ordained function of the negro race. [29]

"If we look," says Mr. Weston, "to the origin of the European races which inhabit this country, Georgia and Alabama and Tennessee are more like [38] their mother countries than New England is. The Irishman and Englishman and German find in Missouri and Texas a climate less dissimilar to that at home, than they do in Wisconsin and Minnesota. The heats of summer are longer and steadier at the South, but not more excessive than at the North. Labour in the fields is performed by whites, and without any ill consequences in the extreme South. Nearly all the heavy out-door work in the city of New Orleans is performed by whites. . . . The practical experience of mankind is a sufficient answer to fanciful rules, which, applied on the other side of the Atlantic, would surrender to the African, Spain, France, and Italy, and drive back their present inhabitants to the shores of the Baltic. The three thousand years of recorded civilization in the regions which environ the Mediterranean on all its sides, prove that no part of the continental borders of the Gulf of Mexico, and none of the islands which separate it from the ocean, need be abandoned to the barbarism of negro slavery. The European stock is found everywhere, from Texas to Patagonia, and in [39] every part of that whole extent is more vigorous and prolific than any other race, indigenous or imported. Isothermal lines are not uniform with parallels of latitude ; vertical suns are qualified by ocean breezes and mountain heights ; and America, even at the equator, offers to man salubrious abodes." [30]

But still more fatally does the theory halt upon the other limb of the argument — the incorrigible indolence of the negro. Whatever plausibility there may have been in this oft repeated assertion in times when the negro was only known as a slave or as a pariah in the land where his existence was scarcely tolerated, it is perfectly futile to advance such statements now in the face of the facts which recent observations have revealed to us. "We, in the United States," says Mr. Sewell, "have heard of abandoning properties in the West Indies, and, without much investigation, have listened to the planters' excuse — the indolence of the negro, who refuses to work except under compulsion. But I shall be able to show that, in those colonies where estates have been abandoned, the labouring classes, instead of passing from servitude to indolence and idleness, have set up for themselves, and that small proprietors since emancipation have increased a hundredfold It is a fact which speaks [40] volumes that, within the last fifteen years, in spite of the extraordinary price of land and the low rate of wages, the small proprietors of Barbadoes holding less than five acres have increased from 1100 to 3537. A great majority of these proprietors were formerly slaves, subsequently free labourers, and finally landholders. This is certainly an evidence of industrious habits, and a remarkable contradiction to the prevailing idea that the negro will work only under compulsion. That idea was formed and fostered from the habits of the negro as a slave ; his habits as a freeman, developed under a wholesome stimulus and settled by time, are in striking contrast to his habits as a slave. I am simply stating a truth in regard to the Barbadian Creole, which here, at least, will not be denied. I have conversed on the subject with all classes and conditions of people, and none are more ready to admit than the planters themselves, that the free labourer in Barbadoes is a better, more cheerful, and more industrious workman than the slave ever was under a system of compulsion." And, again, of an island very differently circumstanced from Barbadoes the same author writes : — "I have taken some pains to trace the Creole labourers of Trinidad from the time of emancipation, after they left the estates and dispersed, to the present day; and the great majority of them can, I think, be followed, step by step, not downward [41] in the path of idleness and poverty, but upward in the scale of civilization to positions of greater independence." [31] This testimony of a perfectly unimpassioned witness, coming after ten years' further experience in corroboration of the evidence given by Mr. Bigelow in 1850, ought to set this question at rest. There is not a tittle of evidence to show that the aversion of the negro to labour is naturally stronger than that of any other branch of the human family. [32] So long as he is compelled to work for the [42] exclusive benefit of a master, he will be inclined to evade his task by every means in his power, as the white man would do under similar circumstances ; but emancipate him, and subject him to the same motives which act upon the free white labourer, and there is no reason to believe he will not be led to exert himself with equal energy.

A circumstance more influential in determining the history of slavery in America than either origin or climate is pointed at by Tocqueville in his remark, that the soil of New England "was entirely opposed to a territorial aristocracy." "To bring that refractory land into cultivation, the constant and interested exertions of the owner himself were necessary ; and, when the ground was prepared, its produce was found to be insufficient to enrich a master and a farmer at the same time. The land was then naturally broken up into small portions which the proprietor cultivated for himself." Such a country, for reasons which will presently be more fully indicated, was entirely unsuited to cultivation by slave labour ; but what I wish here to remark [43] is, that this fact, important as it is with reference to our subject, is yet insufficient in itself to afford the solution which we seek ; for, though it would account for the disappearance of slavery from the New England States, it fails entirely when applied to the country west and south of the Hudson, which is for the most part exceedingly fertile, but in which, nevertheless, slavery, though extensively introduced, has not been able to maintain itself. To understand, therefore, the conditions on which the success of a slave régime depends, we must advert to other considerations than any which have yet been adduced.

The true causes of the phenomenon will appear, if we reflect on the characteristic advantages and disadvantages which attach respectively to slavery and free labour, as productive instruments, in connexion with the external conditions under which these forms of industry came into competition in North America.

The economic advantages of slavery are easily stated : they are all comprised in the fact that the employer of slaves has absolute power over his workmen, and enjoys the disposal of the whole fruit of their labours. [33] Slave labour, therefore, admits of [44] the most complete organization, that is to say, it may be combined on an extensive scale, and directed by a controlling mind to a single end, and its cost can never rise above that which is necessary to maintain the slave in health and strength.

On the other hand, the economical defects of slave labour are very serious. They may be summed up under the three following heads : — it is given reluctantly ; it is unskilful ; it is wanting in versatility.

It is given reluctantly, and consequently the industry of the slave can only be depended on so long as he is watched. The moment the master's eye is withdrawn, the slave relaxes his efforts. The cost of slave labour will therefore, in great measure, depend on the degree in which the work to be performed admits of the workmen being employed in close proximity to each other. If the work be such that a large gang can be employed with efficiency within a small space, and be thus brought under the eye of a single overseer, the expense of superintendence will be slight ; if, on the other hand, the nature of the work requires that the workmen should be dispersed over an extended area, the number of overseers, and therefore, the cost of the labour which requires this supervision, [45] will be proportionately increased. The cost of slave labour thus varies directly with the degree in which the work to be done requires dispersion of the labourers, and inversely as it admits of their concentration. Further, the work being performed reluctantly, fear is substituted for hope, as the stimulus to exertion. But fear is ill calculated to draw from a labourer all the industry of which he is capable. "Fear," says Bentham, "leads the labourer to hide his powers, rather than to show them ; to remain below, rather than to surpass himself. .... By displaying superior capacity, the slave would only raise the measure of his ordinary duties ; by a work of supererogation he would only prepare punishment for himself." He therefore seeks, by concealing his powers, to reduce to the lowest the standard of requisition. "His ambition is the reverse of that of the free man ; he seeks to descend in the scale of industry, rather than to ascend."

Secondly, slave labour is unskilful, and this, not only because the slave, having no interest in his work, has no inducement to exert his higher faculties, but because, from the ignorance to which he is of necessity condemned, he is incapable of doing so. In the Slave States of North America, the education of slaves, even in the most rudimentary form, is proscribed by law, and consequently their [46] intelligence is kept uniformly and constantly at the very lowest point. "You can make a nigger work," said an interlocutor in one of Mr. Olmsted's dialogues," "but you cannot make him think." He is therefore unsuited for all branches of industry which require the slightest care, forethought, or dexterity. He cannot be made to co-operate with machinery ; he can only be trusted with the coarsest implements ; he is incapable of all but the rudest forms of labour. [34]

But further, slave labour is eminently defective in point of versatility. The difficulty of teaching the slave anything is so great, that the only chance of turning his labour to profit is, when he has once learned a lesson, to keep him to that lesson for life. [47] Where slaves, therefore, are employed there can be no variety of production. If tobacco be cultivated, tobacco becomes the sole staple, and tobacco is produced, whatever be the state of the market, and whatever be the condition of the soil. [35] This peculiarity of slave labour, as we shall see, involves some very important consequences.

Such being the character of slave-labour, as an industrial instrument, let us now consider the qualities of the agency with which, in the colonization of North America, it was brought into competition. This was the labour of peasant proprietors, a productive instrument, in its merits and defects, the exact reverse of that with which it was called upon to compete. Thus, the great and almost the sole excellence of slave labour is, as we have seen, its capacity for organization ; and this is precisely the circumstance with respect to which the labour of peasant proprietors is especially defective. In a community of peasant proprietors, each workman labours on his own account, without much reference to what his fellow-workmen are doing. There is no commanding mind to whose guidance the whole labour force will yield obedience, and under whose control it may be directed by skilful combinations to the result which is desired. Nor does this system afford room for classification and economical distribution [48] of a labour force in the same degree as the system of slavery. Under the latter, for example, occupation may be found for a whole family of slaves, according to the capacity of each member, in performing the different operations connected with certain branches of industry. Thus, in the culture of tobacco, the women and children may be employed in picking the worms off the plants, or gathering the leaves as they become ripe, while the men are engaged in the more laborious tasks. But it is otherwise when the cultivator is a small proprietor. His children are at school, and his wife finds enough to occupy her in her domestic duties : he can, therefore, command for all operations, however important or however insignificant, no other labour than his own, or that of his grown-up sons — labour which would be greatly misapplied in performing such manual operations as I have described. His team of horses might be standing idle in the stable, while he was gathering tobacco leaves or picking worms, an arrangement which would render his work exceedingly costly. The system of peasant proprietorship, therefore, does not admit of combination and classification of labour in the same degree as that of slavery. But if in this respect it lies under a disadvantage as compared with its rival, in every other respect it enjoys an immense superiority. The peasant proprietor, appropriating the whole [49] produce of his toil, needs no other stimulus to exertion. Superintendence is here completely dispensed with. The labourer is under the strongest conceivable inducement to put forth, in the furtherance of his task, the full powers of his mind and body ; and his mind, instead of being purposely stinted and stupified, is enlightened by education, and aroused by the prospect of reward. [36]

Such are the two productive agencies which came into competition on the soil of North America. If we now turn to the external conditions under which the competition took place, we shall, I think, have no difficulty in understanding the success of each respectively in that portion of the Continent in which it did in fact succeed.

The line dividing the Slave from the Free States marks also an important division in the agricultural capabilities of North America. North of this line, the products for which the soil and climate are best adapted are cereal crops, while south of it the prevailing crops are tobacco, rice, cotton, and sugar ; and these two classes of crops are broadly distinguished in the methods of culture suitable to each.* The cultivation of the one class, of which cotton may be taken as the type, requires for its efficient conduct that labour should be combined and organized [50] on an extensive scale. [37] On the other hand, for the raising of cereal crops this condition is not so essential. Even where labour is abundant and that labour free, the large capitalist does not in this mode of farming appear on the whole to have any preponderating advantage over the small proprietor, who, with his family, cultivates his own farm, as the example of the best cultivated states in Europe proves. Whatever superiority he may have in the power of combining and directing labour seems to be compensated by the greater energy and spirit which the sense of property gives to the exertions of the small proprietor. But there is another essential circumstance in which these two classes of crops differ. A single labourer, Mr. Russell tells us, [38] can cultivate twenty acres of wheat or Indian corn, while he cannot manage more than two of tobacco, or three of cotton. It appears from this that tobacco and cotton fulfil that condition which we saw was essential to the economical employment of slaves — the possibility of working large numbers within a limited space ; while wheat and Indian corn, in the cultivation of which the labourers are dispersed over a wide surface, fail in this respect. We thus find that cotton, and the class of crops of which cotton may be taken as the type, favour the employment of slaves in the competition with peasant [51] proprietors in two leading ways : first, they need extensive combination and organization of labour — requirements which slavery is eminently calculated to supply, but in respect to which the labour of peasant proprietors is defective ; and secondly, they allow of labour being concentrated, and thus minimize the cardinal evil of slave labour — the reluctance with which it is yielded. On the other hand, the cultivation of cereal crops, in which extensive combination of labour is not important, and in which the operations of industry are widely diffused, offers none of these advantages for the employment of slaves, [39] while it is remarkably fitted to bring out in the highest degree the especial [52] excellencies of the industry of free proprietors. Owing to these causes it has happened that slavery has been maintained in the Southern States, which favour the growth of tobacco, cotton, and analogous products, while, in the Northern States, of which cereal crops are the great staple, it from an early period declined and has ultimately died out. And, in confirmation of this view, it may be added that wherever in the Southern States the external conditions are especially favourable to cereal crops, as in parts of Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri, and along the slopes of the Alleghanies, there slavery has always failed to maintain itself. It is owing to this cause that there now exists in some parts of the South a considerable element of free labouring population.

These considerations appear to explain the permanence of slavery in one division of North America, and its disappearance from the other ; but there are other conditions essential to the economic success of the institution besides those which have been brought into view in the above comparison, to which it is necessary to advert in order to a right understanding of its true basis. These are high fertility of the soil, and a practically unlimited extent of it.

The necessity of these conditions to slavery will be apparent by reflecting on the unskilfulness and want of versatility in slave labour to which we have already referred.

[53]

When the soils are not of good quality, cultivation needs to be elaborate ; a larger capital is expended ; and with the increase of capital the processes become more varied, and the agricultural implements of a finer and more delicate construction. With such implements slaves cannot be trusted, and for such processes they are unfit. [40] It is only, therefore, where the natural fertility of the soil is so great as to compensate for the inferiority of the cultivation, [41] where nature does so much as to leave little for art, and to supersede the necessity of the more difficult contrivances of industry, that slave labour can be turned to profitable account. [42]

Further, slavery, as a permanent system, has need not merely of a fertile soil, but of a practically unlimited extent of it. This arises from the defect of [54] slave labour in point of versatility. As has been already remarked, the difficulty of teaching the slave anything is so great — the result of the compulsory ignorance in which he is kept, combined with want of intelligent interest in his work — that the only chance of rendering his labour profitable is, when he has once learned a lesson, to keep him to that lesson for life. Accordingly where agricultural operations are carried on by slaves, the business of each gang is always restricted to the raising of a single product. [43] "In Brazil," says M. Elisée Reclus, "the proprietors carefully refrain from imposing on their slaves agricultural labours which demand the intelligence and versatility which are only to be found amongst the free. They know instinctively that the cultivation of wheat, of maize, of the numerous roots and plants which [55] constitute the agricultural flora, requires the concurrence of many minds, skilful to foresee and prompt to decide. Now what of all this could they expect from their slaves — bodies without souls — deprived by servitude of all power of initiative, and resembling in their movements inanimate machines ? The planters are thus obliged to employ their negroes exclusively in the production of a few commodities, and can only make their labour profitable by keeping up an invariable routine." [44] Whatever crop may be best suited to the character of the soil and the nature of slave industry, whether cotton, tobacco, sugar, or rice, that crop is cultivated, and that alone. Rotation of crops is thus precluded by the conditions of the case. The soil is tasked again and again to yield the same product, and the inevitable result follows. [56] After a short series of years its fertility is completely exhausted, the planter — "land-killer" he is called in the picturesque nomenclature of the South [45] — abandons the ground which he has rendered worthless, and passes on to seek in new soils for that fertility under which alone the agencies at his disposal can be profitably employed.

This point being a fundamental one, it is important to observe that, with reference to it — whatever may be said by reckless partisans of the South in this country — there is absolutely no difference of opinion among the highest authorities in the United States, whether Northern or Southern. As to the tendency of the system of slave cultivation, as practised in the South, to exhaust the soil, and as to the fact of an extensive exhaustion of the soil throughout the plantation districts, the testimony of Mr. De Bow is not less clear and decided than that of Mr. Olmsted: — "The great error of Southern agriculture is the general practice of exhausting culture — the almost universal deterioration of the productive power of the soil — which power is the main and essential foundation of all agricultural wealth.." ..."This unprofitable procedure, which would be deemed the most marvellous folly in regard [57] to any other kind of capital invested, is precisely that which is still generally pursued by the cultivators of the soil in all the cotton-producing states, and which prevailed as generally, and much longer in my own country, and which, even now, is more usual there than the opposite course of fertilizing culture. The recuperative powers of nature are indeed continually operating, and to great effect, to repair the waste of fertility caused by the destructive industry of man, and but for this natural and imperfect remedy, all these Southern States (and most of the Northern [states of the south] likewise) would be already barren deserts in which agricultural labours would be hopeless of reward, and civilized men could not exist." [46] "I can show you with sorrow," says another Southern authority, "in the older portions of Alabama, and in my native county of Madison, the sad memorials of the artless and exhausting culture of cotton. Our small planters, after taking the cream off their lands, unable to restore them by rest, manures, or otherwise, are going further west and south in search of other virgin lands, which they may and will despoil and impoverish in like manner. [58] Our wealthier planters, with greater means and no more skill, are buying out their poorer neighbours, extending their plantations, and adding to their slave force. The wealthy few, who are able to live on smaller profits, and to give their blasted fields some rest, are thus pushing off the many who are merely independent. . . In traversing that county one will discover numerous farm-houses, once the abode of industrious and intelligent freemen, now occupied by slaves, or tenantless, deserted, and dilapidated; he will observe fields, once fertile, now unfenced, abandoned, and covered with those evil harbingers — fox-tail and broom-sedge; he will see the moss growing on the mouldering walls of once thrifty villages ; and will find 'one only master grasps the whole domain' that once furnished happy homes for a dozen families. Indeed, a country in its infancy, where, fifty years ago, scarce a forest tree had been felled by the axe of the pioneer, is already exhibiting the painful signs of senility and decay apparent in Virginia and the Carolinas ; the freshness of its agricultural glory is gone, the vigour of its youth is extinct, and the spirit of desolation seems brooding over it." [47] Even in Texas, before it had yet been ten years under the dominion of this [59] devastating system, Mr. Olmsted tells us that the spectacle so familiar and so melancholy in all the older Slave States was already not unfrequently seen by the traveller — "an abandoned plantation of 'worn-out' fields with its little village of dwellings, now a home only for wolves and vultures." [48]

Such have been fruits of the slave cultivation on the continent. But it seems to be commonly supposed that the history of the West Indies teaches us a different lesson. The notion appears to be widely entertained that these islands furnish the example of a career of continuous prosperity enjoyed under slavery, extending over some two hundred years, and only interrupted by the fatal gift of emancipation. There cannot be a greater mistake than this. Slavery in the West Indies has been attended with precisely the same effects which have followed it elsewhere. So entirely is this the case that the feature in their history which most forcibly arrests the philosophic observer is the [60] uniformity with which — diversified as have been the fortunes of those islands in other respects — they have passed through the ordinary cycle of slave-holding communities. "Before we pass onwards," says Mr. Merivale, summing up the results of his survey of the industrial history of the West Indies, "let us pause for a moment to reflect on the remarkable uniformity with which events have succeeded each other in the economical history of the West Indies in general. At each epoch in that history we see the same causes producing almost identical effects. The opening of a fresh soil, with freedom of trade, gives a sudden stimulus to settlement and industry ; the soil is covered with free proprietors, and a general but rude prosperity prevails. Then follows a period of more careful cultivation, during which estates are consolidated, gangs of slaves succeed to communities of freemen, the rough commonwealth is formed into a most productive factory. But fertility diminishes ; the cost of production augments : slave labour, always dear, becomes dearer through the increased difficulty of supporting it : new settlements are occupied, new sources of production opened: the older colonies, unable to maintain a ruinous competition, even with the aid of prohibitions, descend after a period of suffering and difficulty into a secondary state, in which capital, economy, and increased skill make [61] up, to a certain extent only, for the invaluable advantages which they have lost. Thus we have seen the Windward Islands maintaining at one period a numerous white population ; afterwards, importing numerous slaves, and supplying almost all the then limited consumption of Europe. We have seen Jamaica rise on their decay, and go through precisely the same stages of existence. We have seen how St. Domingo, in its turn, greatly eclipsed Jamaica ; but St. Domingo was cut off by a sudden tempest, and never attained to the period of decline. Lastly, we have seen the Spanish colonies of Cuba and Porto Rico, after so many centuries of comparative neglect and rude productiveness, start all at once into the first rank among exporting countries, and flourish like the exuberant crops of their own virgin soil, while our islands, still rich in capital, but for the most part exhausted in fertility and deficient in labour, were struggling by the aid of their accumulated wealth against the encroaching principle of decay. The life of artificial and antisocial communities may be brilliant for a time ; but it is necessarily a brief one, and terminates either by rapid decline, or still more rapid revolution, when the laboriously constructed props of their wealth give way, as they sometimes do, in sudden ruin." [49]

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It appears, therefore, that the experience of history confirms the deductions of reason. Slave cultivation, wherever it has been tried in the new world, has issued in the same results. Precluding the conditions of rotation of crops or skilful management, it tends inevitably to exhaust the land of a country, and consequently requires for its permanent success not merely a fertile soil but a practically unlimited extent of it. [50]

To sum up, then, the conclusions at which we have arrived, the successful maintenance of slavery, as a system of industry, requires the following conditions : — 1st. Abundance of fertile soil ; and, 2nd. a crop the cultivation of which demands combination and organization of labour on an extensive scale, and admits of its concentration. It is owing to the presence of these conditions that slavery has [63] maintained itself in the Southern States of North America, and to their absence that it has disappeared from the Northern States.

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CHAPTER III. INTERNAL ORGANIZATION OF SLAVE COMMUNITIES.↩

The explanation offered in the last chapter of the success and failure of slavery in different portions of North America resolved itself into the proposition, that in certain cases the institution was found to be economically profitable while it proved unprofitable in others. From this position — the profitableness of slavery under given external conditions — the inference is generally made by those who advocate or look with indulgence on the system, that slavery must be regarded as conducive to at least the material well-being of countries in which these conditions exist ; and these conditions being admittedly present in the Slave States of North America, it is concluded that the abolition of slavery in those states would necessarily be attended with a diminution of their wealth, and by consequence, owing to the mode in which the interests of all nations are identified through commerce, with a corresponding injury to the material interests of the rest of the world. In this manner it is attempted to enlist the selfish feelings of mankind in favour of the institution ; and it is not impossible that many [65] persons, who would be disposed to condemn it upon moral grounds, are thus led to connive at its existence. It will, therefore, be desirable, before proceeding further with the investigation of our subject, to ascertain precisely the extent of the admission in favour of the system which is involved in the foregoing explanation of its success.

And, in the first place, it must be remarked that the profitableness which has been attributed to slavery is profitableness estimated exclusively from the point of view of the proprietor of slaves. Profitableness in this sense is all that is necessary to account for the introduction and maintenance of the system (which was the problem with which alone we were concerned), since it was with the proprietors that the decision rested. But those who are acquainted with the elementary principles which govern the distribution of wealth, know that the profits of capitalists may be increased by the same process by which the gross revenue of a country is diminished, and that therefore the community as a whole may be impoverished through the very same means by which a portion of its number is enriched. The economic success of slavery, therefore, is perfectly consistent with the supposition that it is prejudicial to the material well-being of the country where it is established. The argument, in short, comes to this : the interests of slave-masters — or [66] rather that which slave-masters believe to be their interests — are no more identical with the interests of the general population in slave countries in the matter of wealth, than in that of morals or of politics. That which benefits, or seems to benefit, the one in any of these departments, may injure the other. It follows, therefore, that the economic advantages possessed by slavery, which were the inducement to its original establishment and which cause it still to be upheld, are perfectly compatible with its being an obstacle to the industrial development of the country, and at variance with the best interests, material as well as moral, of its inhabitants.

Further, the profitableness which has been attributed to slavery does not even imply that the system is conducive to the interests (except in the narrowest sense of the word) of the class for whose especial behoof it exists Individuals and classes may always be assumed to follow their own interests according to their lights and tastes ; but that which their lights and tastes point out as their interest will vary with the degree of their intelligence and the character of their civilization. When the intelligence of a class is limited and its civilization low, the view it will take of its interests will be correspondingly narrow and sordid. Extravagant and undue importance will be attached to the mere animal pleasures. A small gain obtained by coarse [67] and obvious methods will be preferred to a great one which requires a recourse to more refined expedients ; and the future well-being of the race will be regarded as of less importance than the aggrandisement of the existing generation.

But our admissions in favour of slavery require still further qualification. The establishment of slavery in the Southern States was accounted for by its superiority in an economic point of view over free labour, in the form in which free labour existed in America at the time when that continent was settled. Now, the superiority of slave over free labour to which its adoption was originally owing, is by no means to be assumed as still existing in virtue of the fact that slavery is still maintained. Of two systems one may at a given period be more profitable than the other, and may on this account be established, but may afterwards cease to be so, and yet may nevertheless continue to be upheld, either from habit, or from unwillingness to adopt new methods, or from congeniality with tastes which had been formed under its influence. It is a difficult and slow process under all circumstances to alter the industrial system of a country ; but the difficulty of exchanging one form of free industry for another is absolutely inappreciable when compared with that which we encounter when we attempt to substitute free for servile institutions, [68] It is therefore quite possible — how far the case is actually so I shall afterwards examine — that the persistent maintenance of the system at the present day may be due less to its economical advantages than to the habits and tastes it may have engendered, and to the enormous difficulty of getting rid of it. Since the settlement of the Southern States a vast change has taken place in the American continent. Free labour, which was then scarce and costly, has now in many of the large towns become superabundant; and it is quite possible that, even with external conditions so favourable to slavery as the southern half of North America undoubtedly presents, free labour would now, on a fair trial, be found more than a match for its antagonist. Such a trial, however, is not possible under the present régime of the South. Slavery is in possession of the field, and enjoys all the advantages which possession in such a contest confers.

The concession then in favour of slavery, involved in the explanation given of its definitive establishment in certain portions of North America, amounts to this, that under certain conditions of soil and climate, cultivation by slaves may for a time yield a larger net revenue than cultivation by certain forms of free labour. This is all that needs to be assumed to account for the original establishment of slavery. But the maintenance of the institution at the present [69] day does not imply even this quantum of advantage in its favour ; since, owing to the immense difficulty of getting rid of it when once established on an extensive scale, the reasons for its continuance (regarding the question from the point of view of the slaveholders) may, where it has obtained a firm footing, prevail over those for its abolition, even though it be far inferior as a productive instrument to free labour. The most, therefore, that can be inferred from the existence of the system at the present day is that it is self-supporting.

Having now cleared the ground from the several false inferences with which the economic success of slavery, such as it is, is apt to be surrounded, I proceed to trace the consequences, economic social and political, which flow from the institution.

The comparative anatomist, by reasoning on those fixed relations between the different parts of the animal frame which his science reveals to him, is able from a fragment of a tooth or bone to determine the form, dimensions, and habits of the creature to which it belonged ; and with no less accuracy, it seems to me, may a political economist, by reasoning on the economic character of slavery and its peculiar connexion with the soil, deduce its leading social and political attributes, and almost construct, by way of a priori argument, the entire system of the society of which it forms the foundation, [70] A brief consideration of the economic principles on which, as we have seen in a former chapter, slavery supports itself, will enable us to illustrate this remark.

It was then seen that slave labour is, from the nature of the case, unskilled labour ; and it is evident that this circumstance at once excludes it from the field of manufacturing and mechanical industry. [51] Where a workman is kept in compulsory ignorance, and is, at the same time, without motive for exerting his mental faculties, it is quite impossible that he should take part with efficiency in the difficult and delicate operations which most manufacturing and mechanical processes involve.The care and dexterity which the management of machinery requires is not to be obtained from him, and he would often do more damage in an hour than the produce of his labour for a year would cover. Nor is it for economic reasons only that the slave is shut out from this department of industry.A still more potent reason for his exclusion is to be found in the social and political consequences which would follow his admission to this field. The conduct of manufacturing industry on a great scale always brings with it the congregation in towns of large masses of workmen. The danger incident to this, where the workmen are slaves, is too obvious to need being [71] pointed out. Discussion, mutual understanding, combination, secret or open, for the purpose of redressing what is or seems to be amiss, would be the certain consequences. Where, indeed, freedom prevails, such consequences become sources of harmony and strength ; but is it to be supposed that slave-masters will consent to encounter the free development of the principle of association among their thralls ? The thing is inconceivable. Manufacturing industry, where slavery exists, could only be carried on at the constant risk of insurrection, [52] and this must effectually prevent it in such societies from ever attaining any considerable growth, [53] And no less plain is it that slavery is unsuited to the functions of commerce ; for the soul of commerce is the spirit of enterprise, and this is ever found wanting in communities where slavery exists : their prevailing characteristics are subjection to routine [72] and contempt for money-making pursuits. Moreover, the occupations of commerce are absolutely prohibitive of the employment of servile labour A mercantile marine composed of slaves is a form of industry which the world has not yet seen. Mutinies in mid-ocean and desertions the moment the vessel touched at foreign ports would quickly reduce the force to a cipher. These are obstacles which no natural instinct for commerce is sufficient to overcome. They have proved as fatal to its success in Southern, as in Northern, America, in Brazil as in the Confederate States, In both, notwithstanding the temptation of a vast range of coast line and excellent harbours, the descendants of races who in former ages and elsewhere have shewn a marvellous aptitude for maritime pursuits, have abandoned their natural career, and have permitted the whole external commerce of the country to pass into foreign hands. [54]

[73]

Slavery, therefore, excluded by these causes from the field of manufactures and commerce, finds its natural career in agriculture ; and, from what has been already established respecting the peculiar qualities of slave labour, we may easily divine the form which agricultural industry will assume under a servile régime. The single merit of slave labour as an industrial instrument consists, as we have seen, in its capacity for organization — its susceptibility, that is to say, of being adjusted with precision to the kind of work to be done, and of being directed on a comprehensive plan towards some distinctly conceived end. Now to give scope to this quality, the scale on which industry is carried on must be extensive, and to carry on industry on an extensive scale large capitals are required. Large capitalists will therefore have, in slave communities, a special and peculiar advantage over small capitalists beyond that which they enjoy in countries where labour is free. But there is another circumstance which renders a considerable capital still more an indispensable condition to the successful conduct of industrial operations in slave countries. A capitalist [74] who employs free labour needs for the support of his labour force a sum sufficient to cover the amount of their wages during the interval which elapses from the commencement of their operations until the sale of the produce which results from them. But the capitalist employing slave labour requires not merely this sum — represented in his case by the food, clothing, and shelter provided for his slaves during the corresponding period — but, in addition to this, a sum sufficient to purchase the fee-simple of his entire slave force. For the conduct of a given business, therefore, it is obvious that the employer of slave labour will require a much larger capital than the employer of free labour. The capital of the one will represent merely the current outlay ; while the capital of the other will represent, in addition to this, the future capabilities of the productive instrument. The one will represent the interest, the other the principal and interest, of the labour employed. Owing to these causes large capitals are, relatively to small, more profitable, and are, at the same time, absolutely more required in countries of slave, than in countries of free, labour. It happens, however, that capital is in slave countries a particularly scarce commodity, owing partly to the exclusion from such countries of many modes of creating it — manufactures and commerce for example— which are open to free communities, and [75] partly to what is also a consequence of the institution — the unthrifty habits of the upper classes. We arrive therefore at this singular conclusion, that, while large capitals in countries of slave labour enjoy peculiar advantages, and while the aggregate capital needed in them for the conduct of a given amount of industry is greater than in countries where labour is free, capital nevertheless in such countries is exceptionally scarce. From this state of things result two phenomena which may be regarded as typical of industry carried on by slaves — the magnitude of the plantations and the indebtedness of the planters. Wherever negro slavery has prevailed in modern times, these two phenomena will be found to exist. They form the burden of most of what has been written on our West Indian Islands while under the régime of slavery ; they are reproduced in Cuba and Brazil ; [55] and they are not less prominently the characteristic features of the industrial system [76] of the Southern States. "Our wealthier planters," says Mr. Clay, "are buying out their poor neighbours, extending their plantations, and adding to their slave force. The wealthy few, who are able to live on smaller profits, and to give their blasted fields some rest, are thus pushing off the many who are merely independent." At the same time these wealthier planters are, it is well known, very generally in debt, the forthcoming crops being for the most part mortgaged to Northern capitalists, who make the needful advances, and who thus become the instruments by which a considerable proportion of the slave labour of the South is maintained. The tendency of things, therefore, in slave countries is to a very unequal distribution of wealth. The large capitalists, having a steady advantage over their smaller competitors, engross, with the progress of time, a larger and larger proportion of the aggregate wealth of the country, and gradually acquire the control of its collective industry. Meantime, amongst the ascendant class a condition of general indebtedness prevails.

But we may carry our deductions from the economic character of slavery somewhat further. It has been seen that slave cultivation can only maintain itself where the soil is rich, while it produces a steady deterioration of the soils on which it is employed. This being so, it is evident that in [77] countries of average fertility but a small portion of the whole area will be available for this mode of cultivation, and that this portion is ever becoming smaller, since, as the process of deterioration proceeds, more soils are constantly reaching that condition in which servile labour ceases to be profitable. What, then, is to become of the remainder — that large portion of the country which is either naturally too poor for cultivation by slaves, or which has been made so by its continued employment ? It will be thought, perhaps, that this may be worked by free labour, and that by a judicious combination of both forms of industry the whole surface of the country may be brought to the highest point of productiveness. But this is a moral impossibility : it is precluded by what, we shall find, is a cardinal feature in the structure of slave societies — their exclusiveness. In free countries industry is the path to independence, to wealth, to social distinction, and is therefore held in honour ; in slave countries it is the vocation of the slave, and becomes therefore a badge of degradation. Idleness, which in free countries is regarded as the mother of all vices, becomes in the land of the slave the prerogative of a caste and is transformed into a title of nobility. [56] The free labourer, consequently, who [78] respects his calling and desires to be respected, instinctively shuns a country where industry is discredited, where he cannot engage in those pursuits by which wealth and independence are to be gained without placing himself on a level with the lowest of mankind. Free and slave labour are, therefore, incapable of being blended together in the same system. Where slavery exists it excludes all other forms of industrial life. "The traveller," says Tocqueville, "who floats down the current of the Ohio, may be said to sail between liberty and servitude. Upon the left bank of the stream the population is sparse ; from time to time one descries a troop of slaves loitering in the half-desert fields ; the primaeval forest recurs at every turn ; society seems to be asleep, man to be idle, and nature alone offers a scene of activity and of life. From the right bank, on the contrary, a confused hum is heard which proclaims the presence of industry ; the fields are covered with abundant harvests ; the elegance of the dwellings announces the taste and activity of the labourer ; and man appears to be in the enjoyment of that wealth and contentment which is the reward of labour. Upon the left bank of the Ohio labour is confounded with the idea of slavery, upon the right bank it is identified with that of prosperity and improvement ; on the one side it is degraded, on the other it is honoured ; on the former territory [79] no white labourers can be found, for they would be afraid of assimilating themselves to the negroes ; on the latter no one is idle, for the white population extends its activity and its intelligence to every kind of employment. Thus the men whose task it is to cultivate the rich soil of Kentucky are ignorant and lukewarm ; whilst those who are enlightened either do nothing, or pass over into the State of Ohio, where they may work without dishonour." [57]

"If there is little hope that in an agricultural community, in which the slave system is established, the mass of the white population can be advanced to a position of competence and independence ; there is quite as little hope of the growth, from any elements which such a population affords, of towns, of the [80] mechanic arts, or of manufacturing and commercial interests. Capacity of labour, which is everywhere only the result of use and habit, is not called into existence, and a savage indolent contentment with the coarsest subsistence extinguishes all desire of advancement. Cuba, with a large non-slaveholding white population, relies upon Europe and the Northern States for engineers, machinists, and ordinary mechanics, and upon Spain for even petty shopkeepers ... Throughout the South towns are built up only by Northern and European immigration, and without it there would be scarcely any manifestation of civilization. Mills, railroads, cotton presses, sugar boilers, and steam-boats, [81] are mainly indebted for their existence in the Southern States to intelligence and muscle trained in free communities." [58]

Agriculture, therefore, when carried on by slaves, being by a sure law restricted to the most fertile portions of the land, and no other form of systematic industry being possible where slavery is established, it happens that there are in all slave countries vast districts, becoming, under the deteriorating effects of slave industry, constantly larger, which are wholly surrendered to nature, and remain for ever as wilderness. This is a characteristic feature in the political economy of the Slave States of the South, and is attended with social consequences of the most important kind. For the tracts thus left, or made, desolate become in time the resort of a promiscuous horde, who, too poor to keep slaves and too proud to work, prefer a vagrant and precarious life spent in the desert to engaging in occupations which would associate them with the slaves whom they despise. In the Southern States no less than four millions of human beings are now said to exist in this manner in a condition little removed from savage life, eking out a wretched subsistence by hunting, by fishing, by hiring themselves out for occasional jobs, by plunder. Combining the restlessness and contempt for [82] regular industry peculiar to the savage with the vices of the prolétaire of civilized communities, these people make up a class at once degraded and dangerous, and, constantly reinforced as they are by all that is idle, worthless, and lawless among the population of the neighbouring states, form an inexhaustible preserve of ruffianism, ready at hand for all the worst purposes of Southern ambition. The planters complain of these people for their idleness, for corrupting their slaves, for their thievish propensities ; but they cannot dispense with them ; for, in truth, they perform an indispensable function in the economy of slave societies, of which they are at once the victims and the principal supports. It is from their ranks that those filibustering expeditions are recruited which have, been found so effective an instrument in extending the domain of the Slave Power ; they furnish the Border Ruffians who in the colonization struggle with the Northern States contend with Freesoilers on the Territories ; and it is to their antipathy to the negroes that the planters securely trust for repressing every attempt at servile insurrection. Such are the "mean whites" or "white trash" of the Southern States. [59] They comprise several local subdivisions, the "crackers," the "sand-hillers," [83] the "clay-eaters," and many more. The class is not peculiar to any one locality, but is the invariable outgrowth of negro slavery wherever it has raised its head in modern times. It may be seen in the new state of Texas [60] as well as in the old settled districts of Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia ; in the West India Islands [61] no less than on the Continent. In the States of the Confederacy it comprises, as I have said, four millions of human beings — about seven-tenths of the whole white population. [62]

The industry of the Slave States, we have seen, is exclusively agricultural ; and the mode of agriculture pursued in them has been represented as partial, perfunctory, and exhaustive. It must, however, be admitted that, to a certain extent, this description is applicable to the industrial condition of all new countries, and will find illustrations in the [84] western regions of the Free States ; and it may therefore occur to the reader that the economical conditions which I have described are rather the consequence of the recent settlement of the societies where they prevail than specific results of the system of slavery. But it is easy to show that this view of the case is fallacious, and proceeds from confounding what is essential in slave industry with an accidental and temporary feature in the industrial career of free communities. The settlers in new countries, whether they be slaveholders or free peasants, naturally fix in the first instance on the richest and most conveniently situated soils, and find it more profitable to cultivate these lightly, availing themselves to the utmost of the resources which nature offers, than to force cultivation on inferior soils after the manner of high farming in old countries. So far the cases are similar. But here lies the difference. The labour of free peasants, though of course more productive on rich than on inferior soils, is not necessarily confined to the former ; whereas this is the case with the labour of slaves. Accordingly, therefore, as free peasants multiply, after the best soils have been appropriated, the second best are taken into cultivation ; and as they multiply still more, cultivation becomes still more general, until ultimately all the cultivable portions of the country are brought within the [85] domain of industry. This has been the course of industrial progress throughout the settled portions of the Northern States, but it has been otherwise in the South. As slaves multiply, their masters cannot have recourse to inferior soils : they must find for them new soils : the mass of the country, therefore, remains uncultivated, and the population increases only by dispersion. Again, although the mode of cultivation pursued by free peasants in new lands is generally far from what would be approved of by the scientific farmers of old countries, still it does not exhaust the soil in the same manner as cultivation carried on by slaves. "I hold myself justified," says Mr. Olmsted, "in asserting that the natural elements of wealth in the soil of Texas will have been more exhausted in ten years, and with them the rewards offered by Providence to labour will have been more lessened, than without slavery would have been the case in two hundred. . . . After two hundred years' occupation of similar soils by a free labouring community, I have seen no such evidences of waste as in Texas I have after ten years of slavery. . . . Waste of soil and injudicious application of labour are common in the agriculture of the North ; . . . but nowhere is the land with what is attached to it now less promising and suitable for the residence of a refined and civilized people than it was before the operations, which have [86] been attended with the alleged waste, were commenced." The same is not true of Virginia or the Carolinas, or of any other district where slavery has predominated for a historic period. "The land in these cases is positively less capable of sustaining a dense civilized community than if no labour at all had been expended upon it." [63] "Examples," says Mr. De Bow, "may be found in our own country of states having become poorer by a steady perseverance in an unwise application of their labour. Such is the case in the Atlantic states south of the Potomac, as I think will be granted by every intelligent and candid individual who is acquainted with the country, and I think it will be admitted that these states are poorer than they were twenty years ago. There is a small increase in the number of labourers, and there may have been something gained in skill ; but the great source of all wealth in an agricultural country — the soil — has been greatly deteriorated and diminished, and it may be affirmed without the fear of successful contradiction, that no country, and more especially an agricultural one, can increase in wealth while the soil is becoming more and more exhausted every year, for it is most clear that sooner or later an absolute state of exhaustion must be the result, and no wealth that could be acquired by the sale of those products, the [87] growth of which had caused this state of things, could compensate for the loss of the soil." [64] The superficial and careless mode of agriculture pursued by free peasants in new countries is, in short, accidental and temporary, the result of the exceptional circumstances in which they are placed, and gives place to a better system as population increases and inferior soils are brought under the plough ; but the superficiality and exhaustiveness of agriculture carried on by slaves are essential and unalterable qualities, rendering all cultivation impossible but that which is carried on upon the richest soils, and not to be remedied by the growth of population, since to this they are an effectual bar. [65]

My position is, that in slave communities agriculture is substantially the sole occupation, while this single pursuit is prematurely arrested in its development, never reaching those soils of secondary quality which, under a system of free industry would, with the growth of society, be brought under [88] cultivation ; and of this statement the industrial history of the Free and Slave States forms one continued illustration. The state of Virginia, for example, is the longest settled state in the Union, and for general productive purposes, one of the most richly endowed. It possesses a fertile soil, a genial climate ; it is rich in mineral productions — in iron, in copper, in coal — the coal fields of Virginia being amongst the most extensive in the world, and the coal of superior quality ; it is approached by one of the noblest bays ; it is watered by numerous rivers, some of them navigable for considerable distances, and most of them capable of affording abundance of water power for manufacturing purposes. [66] With such advantages, Virginia, a region as large as England, could not fail, in a career of two hundred and fifty years, under a system of free industry, to become a state of great wealth, population, and power. Her mineral and manufacturing, as well as her agricultural, resources would be [89] brought into requisition ; her population would increase with rapidity, and become concentrated in large towns ; her agriculture would be extended over the whole surface of the country. But what is the result of the experiment under slavery ? After a national life of two hundred and fifty years the whole free population is still under one million souls. [67] Eight-tenths of her industry are devoted to agriculture ; and the progress which has been made in this, the principal pursuit, may be estimated by the significant fact, that the average price per acre of cultivated land in Virginia is no more that eight dollars. Contrast this with the progress made in fifty years by the free state of Ohio — a state smaller in area than Virginia, and inferior in variety of resources. Ohio was admitted as a state into the Union in 1802, and in 1850 its population numbered nearly two millions. [68] Like Virginia it is chiefly agricultural, though not from the same causes, Ohio being from its resources and internal position adapted in a peculiar manner to agriculture, while the resources of Virginia would fit it equally for manufactures or commerce ; but, while [90] the average price of cultivated land per acre in Virginia, after an agricultural career of two hundred and fifty years, is eight dollars, the average price in Ohio, after a career of fifty years, is twenty dollars. [69] The contrast will of course only become more striking, if, instead of a free state of fifty years' growth, we take one more nearly on a par in the duration of its career with the slave state with which it is compared. New Jersey, for example, was founded about the same time as Virginia. Its climate, Mr. Olmsted tells us, differs imperceptibly from that of Virginia, owing to its vicinity to the ocean, while its soil is decidedly less fertile ; but such progress has been made in bringing that soil under cultivation that, against eight dollars per acre — the average price of land in Virginia — there is to be set in New Jersey an average of forty-four dollars, [70] Let us take another example. New York and Massachusetts are also, in relation to Virginia, [91] contemporary states. In agricultural resources they are greatly its inferiors, the soil of Massachusetts in particular being sterile and its climate harsh. What then has been the relative progress made by these three states in bringing their respective soils under cultivation ? In Virginia, 26 1/4 per cent, of her whole area had, in 1852, been brought under tillage ; in New York, 41 per cent. ; and in Massachusetts, 42 1/2 per cent. But these facts do not convey their full lesson till we add that, in bringing 26 1/4 per cent, of her soil under cultivation, Virginia employed eight-tenths of her industrial population, while New York and Massachusetts, in bringing under cultivation much larger proportions of their areas, employed but six and four-tenths of their [92] respective populations. [71] It thus appears that Virginia, with great agricultural resources and a population almost wholly devoted to agriculture, has been far outstripped in her own peculiar branch of industry by states of inferior resources, and whose industry has been largely or principally devoted to other pursuits. The same comparison might be continued throughout the other Free and Slave States with analogous results. The general truth is, that in the Free States, where external circumstances are favourable, industry is distributed over many occupations — manufactures, mining, commerce, agriculture ; while in the Slave States, however various be the resources of the country, it is substantially confined to one — agriculture, and this one is prematurely arrested, never reaching that stage of development which in countries where labour is free is early attained.

"If one acquainted with the present condition of the southwest, were told that the cotton-growing district alone had sold the crop for fifty millions of dollars per annum for the last twenty years, he [93] would naturally conclude that this might be the richest community in the world. He might well imagine that the planters all dwell in palaces, upon estates improved by every device of art, and that their most common utensils were made of the precious metals ; that canals, turnpikes, railways, and every other improvement designed either for use or for ornament, abounded in every part of the land ; and that the want of money had never been felt or heard of in its limits. He would conclude that the most splendid edifices dedicated to the purposes of religion and learning were everywhere to be found, and that all the liberal arts had here found their reward, and a home. But what would be his surprise when told, that so far from dwelling in palaces, many of these planters dwell in habitations of the most primitive construction, and these so inartificially built as to be incapable of protecting the inmates from the winds and rains of heaven ; that instead of any artistical improvement, this rude dwelling was surrounded by cotton fields, or probably by fields exhausted, washed into gullies, and abandoned ; that instead of canals, the navigable streams remain unimproved, to the great detriment of transportation ; that the common roads of the country were scarcely passable ; that the edifices erected for the accommodation of learning and religion were frequently built of logs, and covered [94] with boards ; and that the fine arts were but little encouraged or cared for. Upon receiving this information, he would imagine that this was surely the country of misers — that they had been hoarding up all the money of the world, to the great detriment of the balance of mankind. But his surprise would be greatly increased when informed, that, instead of being misers and hoarders of money, these people were generally scarce of it, and many of them embarrassed and bankrupt. Upon what principle could a stranger to the country account for this condition of things ?" [72]

The reader is now in a position to understand the kind of economic success which slavery has achieved. It consists in the rapid extraction from the soil of a country of the most easily obtained portion of its wealth by a process which exhausts the soil, and consigns to waste all the other resources of the country where it is practised. To state the case with more particularity — by proscribing manufactures and commerce, and confining agriculture within narrow bounds ; by rendering impossible the rise of a free peasantry ; by checking the growth of population — in a word, by blasting every germ from which national well-being and general civilization may spring — at this cost, with the further condition of encroaching, through a reckless system of culture, [95] on the stores designed by Providence for future generations, slavery may undoubtedly for a time be made conducive to the pecuniary gain of the class who keep slaves. Such is the net result of advantage which slavery, as an economic system, is capable of yielding. To the full credit of all that is involved in this admission the institution is fairly entitled.

The constitution of a slave society, it has been seen, is sufficiently simple : it resolves itself into three classes, broadly distinguished from each other, and connected by no common interest — the slaves on whom devolves all the regular industry, the slaveholders who reap all its fruits, and an idle and lawless rabble who live dispersed over vast plains in a condition little removed from absolute barbarism. Besides these, indeed, there is in certain Southern districts a class of peasant farmers — a hardy and industrious race ; but these form no part of the economy of slave society. They are in no sense the growth of slavery, but a foreign element obtruded on the system from without, marring its symmetry, and impairing its strength. Wherever they exist, there a centre of weakness to the cause of slavery exists, and of loyalty to that of freedom. Thus the real constituents of slave society resolve themselves into the three classes I have described ; and of these the Slave Power is the political representative. What the nature of that power is, now [96] that we have ascertained the elements out of which it springs, we can have little difficulty in determining. When the whole wealth of a country is monopolized by a thirtieth part of its population, while the remainder are by physical or moral causes consigned to compulsory poverty and ignorance ; when the persons composing the privileged thirtieth part are all engaged in pursuits of the same kind, subject to the influence of the same moral ideas, and identified with the maintenance of the same species of property — in a society so constituted, political power will of necessity reside with those in whom centre the elements of such power — wealth, knowledge, and intelligence — the small minority for whose exclusive benefit the system exists. [73] The polity of such a society must thus, in essence, be an oligarchy, whatever be the particular mould in which it is cast. Nor is this all. A society so organized tends to develop with a peculiar intensity the distinctive vices of an oligarchy. In a country of free labour, whatever be the form of government to which it is subject, the pursuits of industry are various. Various interests, therefore, take root, and parties grow up which, regarding national questions form various points of view, become centres of opposition, whether against the undue pretensions of any one of their number, or against those of a single [97] ruler. It is not so in the Slave States. That variety of interests which springs from the individual impulses of a free population does not here exist. The elements of a political opposition are wanting. There is but one party, [74] but one set of men who are capable of acting together in political concert. The rest is an undisciplined rabble. From this state of things the only possible result is that which we find — a despotism, in the last degree unscrupulous and impatient of control, wielded by the wealthy few. Now it is this power which for half a century has exercised paramount sway in the councils of the Union. It is the men educated in the ideas of this system who have filled the highest offices of State, who have been the representatives of their country to European powers, and who, by their position and the influence they have commanded, have given the tone to the public morality of the nation. The deterioration of the institutions and of the character of the people of the United States is now very [98] commonly taken for granted in this country. The fact may be so ; so far as the South is concerned I believe, and shall endeavour to prove, that it unquestionably is so. But it is very important that we should understand to what cause this deterioration is due. There are writers who would have us believe that it is but the natural result of democratic institutions working through the Federal system ; and for this view a plausible case may be easily made out. Democratic institutions have admittedly exercised a powerful influence in forming the American character and determining the present condition of the United States. It is only necessary, therefore, to bring this point strongly into view in close connexion with all that is most objectionable in the public morals, and all that is most discreditable in the recent history, of the Union, keeping carefully out of sight the existence in the political system of institutions the reverse of democratic, and avoiding all reference to the cardinal fact, that it is these and not the democratic institutions of the North which, almost since its establishment, have been the paramount power in the Union, — to leave the impression that everything which has been made matter of reproach in transatlantic politics has been due to democracy and to democracy alone. According to this method of theorising, the abstraction of Florida, the annexation of Texas, the filibustering [99] expeditions of Lopez and Walker, the attempts upon Cuba, have no connexion with the aggressive ambition of the Slave Power : they are only proofs of the rapacious spirit of democracy armed with the strength of a powerful federation. It is, indeed, quite astounding to observe the boldness with which this argument is sometimes handled. One would have thought that an advocate of the Southern cause would at least have shown some hesitancy in alluding to an attack made by a Southern bully, on the floor of the Senate house, upon one of the most accomplished statesmen of the North. That attack was in all its circumstances plainly branded with the marks of its origin. It was committed by a slaveholder, acting as the champion of slaveholders, in revenge of an anti-slavery speech; it was characterized by that mingled treachery, cowardice, and brutality which are only to be found in societies reared in the presence of slavery ; it was adopted and applauded by the whole people of the South, recognized by testimonials, and rewarded by gifts : yet this act is deliberately put forward as an example of the "irreverence for justice" which is produced by democratic institutions, and is employed to prepossess our minds in favour of the Southern cause ! [75] The present writer is far from being an [100] admirer of democracy as it exists in the Northern States ; but, whatever be the merits or demerits of that form of government, it is desirable that it should be judged by its own fruits, and not by the fruits of a system which is its opposite — a system which, in place of conferring political power on the majority of the people, gives it, free from all control, to a small minority whose interests are not only not identical with those of their fellow-citizens, [101] but are directly opposed to theirs. Democracy, beyond all doubt, has been a powerful influence in moulding the character of the Americans in the Northern States : it would be absurd to deny this ; but it would be no less absurd, and would be still more flagrantly in defiance of the most conspicuous facts of the case, to deny that that character has also been profoundly modified by the influence of Southern institutions, acting through the Federal [102] government in the persons of Southern men — institutions which I repeat are the reverse of democratic. It is the Slave Power, and not the democracy of the North, which for half a century has been dominant in the Union. [76] It is this Power which has directed its public policy ; which has guided its intercourse with foreign nations, conducted its diplomacy, regulated its internal legislation, and which, by working on its hopes and fears through the unscrupulous use of an enormous patronage, has exercised an unbounded sway over the minds of the whole people. Whatever other agencies may have contributed to shape the course of American politics, this at least has been a leading one ; and whatever be the political character of the citizens, for that character this system must be held in a principal degree responsible. [77]

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To sum up in a few words the general results of the foregoing discussion : — the Slave Power — that power which has long held the helm of government in the Union — is, under the forms of a democracy, an uncontrolled despotism, wielded by a compact oligarchy. Supported by the labour of four millions of slaves, it rules a population of four millions of whites — a population ignorant, averse to systematic industry, and prone to irregular adventure. A system of society more formidable for evil, more menacing to the best interests of the human race, it is difficult to conceive.

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CHAPTER IV. TENDENCIES OF SLAVE SOCIETIES.↩

In what direction is slave society, as presented in the States of the Confederation, moving ? Towards a higher civilization, or towards barbarism ? On the answer to this question, I apprehend, will principally depend the degree of indulgence which we may be disposed to extend to modern slavery. If the form of society springing from the institution be found to be but an incident of a certain stage of human progress, a shell of barbarism from which nations gradually work themselves free with the development of their moral and material life, an evil which will disappear by a spontaneous process — we shall probably be disposed to regard the institution with considerable leniency, to deprecate schemes for its overthrow, and, perhaps, in certain cases, even to look with favour on plans for its extension. If, on the other hand, it appears that the system is essentially retrograde in its character, contrived so as to arrest and throw back the development, moral and material, of the people on whom it is imposed, and to hold them in a condition of permanent barbarism, the sentiments with which we [105] shall regard it, as well as our policy towards the countries which uphold it, will be of a very different kind.

Thus, to give the point a practical illustration, the mode of dealing with Mexico is at present a most perplexing question for European statesmen. In the present condition of that country — the prey of contending factions, whose alternate excesses prevent the growth of steady industry, deter European settlement, and deprive the world of the benefit which its great natural resources are calculated to confer — almost any change would be a change for the better. The establishment of an effective government of some kind, of a power capable of preserving the lives and properties of the inhabitants, is a matter of prime necessity, without which the first foundations of improvement cannot be laid. Now the most obvious method of effecting this purpose would be to hand the country over to the Southern Confederation ; [78] and this arrangement would entirely fall in with the views of the leaders of that body. But Mexico, whatever be the vices of its political system, is a state in which labour is free ; whereas, if annexed to the dominions of the Southern Confederation, it would at once [106] become the abode of slavery. Nevertheless it can scarcely be doubted that this annexation would, in the first instance, be attended with some advantages. For the chieftains whose combined weakness and violence now keep the country in constant agitation there would be substituted a strong government — a government incompatible, indeed, with freedom of speech or writing, or with security of life or property for such as ventured to dissent from its principles, but still able to preserve order after a certain fashion — able to protect slaveholders in the enjoyment of their property, and to prevent revolutions. Under such a government productive industry might be expected to start forward with vigour ; those products which are capable of being raised with profit by slave labour, and amongst these cotton, would be multiplied and cheapened in the markets of the world ; the position of Mexican bondholders would be improved. Such would probably be the immediate effect of the annexation. But what would be its permanent consequences ? To answer this question we must resolve the problem with which we started. We must determine the direction in which society in the Southern States is moving. If the "peculiar institution" be essentially temporary and provisional in its character, if it be not incompatible with the ultimate emancipation of those on whom it is imposed, as well [107] as with the continued progress of the people among whom it is established, then the permanent, as well as the immediate, consequences of the extension of Southern rule over Mexico, notwithstanding that it would be attended with the introduction of slavery into a country where labour is at present free, might perhaps be thought to be, on the whole, advantageous. But, if the institution of the South be a permanent thraldom, and if the form of society to which it gives birth be of a kind effectually to arrest the growth of the whole people amongst whom it is planted — under these conditions, to hand over Mexico to the Southern Confederacy would be nothing less than, for the sake of certain material advantages to be reaped by the present generation, to seal the doom of a noble country — a country which, under better auspices, might become a perennial source of benefits for all future time, and a new centre of American civilization.

It is therefore of extreme importance to ascertain the tendencies of these slave societies, and what prospects they hold out of future advancement to the people who compose them. And, in approaching this question, it at once occurs that slavery is not a new fact in the world. It prevailed, as we know, among all the nations of antiquity, of whom, nevertheless, some displayed great aptitude for intellectual cultivation, and attained a high degree of [108] general civilization. It formed, at one time, an ingredient in the social system of all modern states, which, however, did not find it incompatible with a progressive career, and the last traces of slavery, in the mitigated form of serfdom, are but now disappearing from Europe. If slavery was not inconsistent with progressive civilization among the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Hebrews — if mediaeval Europe contrived to work itself free from this vicious element of its social constitution, it will perhaps be asked why need we despair of progress for the States of the Confederation. Why are we to suppose that they, under the influence of the same causes which operated in ancient and mediaeval society, should not, in the same gradual fashion, emancipate their slaves, and ultimately reach the same level of general cultivation which those societies attained ? Nay, it is possible there may be those who, while holding slavery to be, as a permanent status, noxious, may nevertheless regard it as not incapable of performing an useful function towards a people in a certain stage of their development, as a kind of probationary discipline suited to their preparation for a higher form of civilized existence, and may consider its maintenance in the Southern States at present as defensible upon this ground. Some such notion, it seems to me, is at the bottom of much of the indulgence, and even favour, with which the [I09] cause of the South has come to be regarded in this country ; [79] and it is, therefore, worth while to consider how far this view of modern slavery is well-founded.

And here it may be advantageous to bear in mind the caution of Tocqueville. "When I compare the Greek and Roman republics with these American States ; . . when I remember all the attempts which are made to judge the modern republics by the assistance of those of antiquity, and to infer what will happen in our time from what took place two thousand years ago, I am tempted to burn my books, in order to apply none but novel ideas to so novel a condition of society." The truth is, between slavery, as it existed in classical and mediaeval times and the system which now erects itself defiantly in North America, there exist the most deep-reaching distinctions. I will mention three, which as it seems to me, are in themselves sufficient to take the case of modern slavery entirely out of the [110] scope of the analogies furnished by the former experience of mankind.

In the first place, there is the vital fact — the difference in race and colour between modern slaves and their masters — a difference which had nothing corresponding to it in the slavery of former times. The consequences flowing from this fact cannot be better stated than in the language of Tocqueville. "The slave, amongst the ancients, belonged to the same race as his master, and he was often the superior of the two in education and instruction. Freedom was the only distinction between them ; and when freedom was conferred, they were easily confounded together. . . . The greatest difficulty of antiquity [in the way of abolition] was that of altering the law ; amongst the moderns it is that of altering the manners ; and, as far as we are concerned, the real obstacles begin where those of the ancients left off. This arises from the circumstance that, amongst the moderns, the abstract and transient fact of slavery is fatally united to the physical and permanent fact of colour. The tradition of slavery dishonours the race, and the peculiarity of the race perpetuates the tradition of slavery. No African has ever voluntarily emigrated to the shores of the New World ; whence it must be inferred, that all the blacks who are now to be found in that hemisphere are either slaves or freed-men. Thus the negro transmits the [111] external mark of his ignominy to all his descendants. The law may cancel servitude, God alone can obliterate its brand.

"The modern slave differs from his master not only in his condition, but in his origin. You may set the negro free, but you cannot make him otherwise than an alien to the European. Nor is this all : we scarcely acknowledge the common features of mankind in this child of debasement whom slavery has brought amongst us. His physiognomy is to our eyes hideous, his understanding weak, his tastes low ; and we are almost inclined to look upon him as a being intermediate between man and the brutes. The moderns, then, after they have abolished slavery, have three prejudices to contend against, which are less easy to attack, and far less easy to conquer, than the mere fact of servitude : the prejudice of the master, the prejudice of race, and the prejudice of colour." [80]

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But, secondly, the immense development of international commerce in modern times furnishes another distinction 'between ancient and modern slavery, which very intimately affects the question we are discussing.

So long as each nation was in the main dependent on the industry of its own members for the supply of its wants, it is obvious that a strong motive would be present for the cultivation of the intelligence, and the improvement of the condition, of the industrial classes. The commodities which minister to comfort and luxury cannot be produced without skilled labour, and skilled labour implies a certain degree of mental cultivation, and a certain progress in social respect. To attain success in the more difficult industrial arts, the workman must respect his vocation, must take an interest in his task ; habits of care, deliberation, forethought must be acquired ; in short, there must be such a general awakening of the faculties, intellectual and moral, as, by leading men to a knowledge of their rights and of the means of enforcing them, inevitably disqualifies them for the servile condition. [81] Now, this was the position in which the slave-master found himself in the ancient world.He was, in [113] the main, dependent on the skill of his slaves for obtaining whatever he required. He was, therefore, naturally led to cultivate the faculties of his slaves, and by consequence to promote generally the improvement of their condition. His progress in the enjoyment of the material advantages of civilization depended directly upon their progress in knowledge and social consideration. Accordingly the education of slaves was never prohibited in the ancient Roman world, and, in point of fact, no small number of them enjoyed the advantage of a high cultivation. "The youths of promising genius," says Gibbon, "were instructed in the arts and sciences, and almost every profession, liberal and mechanical, might be found in the household of an opulent senator." The industrial necessities of Roman society (and the same was true of society in the middle ages) in this way provided for the education of at least a large proportion of the slave population ; and education, accompanied as it was by a general elevation of their condition, led, by a natural and almost inevitable tendency, to emancipation. [82]

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But in the position of slavery in North America there is nothing which corresponds to this. Owing to the vast development in modern times of international trade, modern slaveholders are rendered independent of the skill, and therefore of the intelligence and social improvement, of their slave population. They have only need to find a commodity which is capable of being produced by crude labour, and at the same time in large demand in the markets of the world ; and by applying their slaves to the production of this, they may, through an exchange with other countries, make it the means of procuring for themselves whatever they require. Cotton and sugar, for example, are commodities which fulfil these conditions : they may be raised by crude labour, and they are in large demand throughout the world. Accordingly Alabama and Louisiana have only to employ their slaves in raising these products, and they are enabled through their means to command the industrial resources of all commercial nations. Without [115] cultivating one of the arts or refinements of civilization, they can possess themselves of all its material comforts. Without employing an artisan, a manufacturer, a skilled labourer of any sort, they can secure the products of the highest manufacturing and mechanical skill. "In one way or other," says Mr. Helper, [83] putting the point strikingly, though from the protectionist point of view, "we are more or less subservient to the North every day of our lives. In infancy we are swaddled in Northern muslin ; in childhood we are humoured with Northern gew-gaws ; in youth we are instructed out of Northern books ; at the age of maturity we sow our 'wild oats' on Northern soil ; ... in the decline of life we remedy our eyesight with Northern spectacles, and support our infirmities with Northern canes ; in old age we are drugged with Northern physic ; and, finally, when we die, our inanimate bodies, shrouded in Northern cambric, are stretched upon the bier, borne to the grave in a Northern carriage, entombed with a Northern spade, and memorized with a Northern slab !" Yet all these products of manufacturing and mechanical skill the States which consume them are able to command through the medium of a commodity which is raised by the crudest servile labour. The resources of slavery have in this [116] way been indefinitely increased in modern times. Its capabilities have been multiplied, and, without submitting to the slightest alleviation of its harshest features, it can adapt itself to all the varying wants of human society.

But the consequences of the increased capabilities of slavery do not end in merely negative results. Whatever inducements may exist for cultivating the intelligence of slaves, there are always very weighty reasons against conferring this boon. Accordingly, the former not coming into play in modern times, the latter have operated with unrestricted force. The merest rudiments of learning are now rigorously proscribed for the negroes in the Slave States of North America ; and the prohibition is enforced, both in the persons of the teachers and the taught, with penalties of extraordinary severity. [84] "The only means by which the [117] ancients maintained slavery were fetters and death ; the Americans of the South of the Union have discovered more intellectual securities for the duration of their power. They have employed their despotism and their violence against the human mind. In antiquity, precautions were taken to prevent the slave from breaking his chains ; at the present day measures are adopted to deprive him even of the desire of freedom. The ancients kept the bodies of their slaves in bondage, but they placed no restraint upon the mind and no check upon education ; and they acted consistently with their established principle, since a natural termination of slavery then existed, and one day or other the slave might be set [118] free, and become the equal of his master. But the Americans of the South, who do not admit that the negroes can ever be commingled with themselves, have forbidden them to be taught to read and write under severe penalties ; and as they will not raise them to their own level, they sink them as nearly as possible to that of the brutes." [85] The education of slaves amongst the ancients prepared the way for emancipation. The prohibition of the education of slaves amongst the moderns has naturally suggested the policy of holding them in perpetual bondage ; and laws and manners have conspired to interpose obstacles all but insuperable in the way of manumission. [86] Thus the modern slave is cut off from [119] the one great allevation of his lot — the hope of freedom. [87]

But there is yet another distinction between the slavery of modern times and slavery as it was known among the progressive communities of former ages, which deserves to be noticed — I mean the place which the slave trade fills in the organization of modern slavery. Trading in slaves was doubtless practised by the ancients, and with sufficient barbarity. But we look in vain in the records of antiquity for a traffic which in extent, in systematic character, and above all, in the function discharged by it as the common support of countries breeding [120] and consuming human labour, which can with justice be regarded as the analogue of the modern slave trade — of that organized system which has been carried on between Guinea and the coast of America, or of that between Virginia, the Guinea of the New World, and the slave-consuming states of the South and West. [88] This peculiar outgrowth of the institution forms a characteristic feature in modern slavery, and its consequences, in connexion with the question which we are considering, are of a very important kind.

The effects of the slave trade in aggravating a hundredfold all the evils of servitude have often been described. African slave-hunts, the horrors of the middle passage, the misery of unhappy barbarians, accustomed to the wild freedom of their native land, caught up and hurried away to a remote continent, and compelled to toil for the rest of their days under the whip of an alien taskmaster, have often been dwelt upon. So, also, the story of human beings, reared amidst the softening influences of civilization, who, so soon as they arrive at the maturity of their physical power, are, like so many cattle, shipped off to a distant region of tropical heat there [121] to be worked to death — of husbands separated from their wives, children from their parents, brothers and sisters from each other — of exposure on the auction-block and transfer to new masters and strange climates — all this happening not to heathen savages, but to men and women capable of affection and friendship, and sensible to moral suffering, — this story, I say, is familiar to us all ; but my object at present is to direct attention, not so much to the barbarous inhumanity of the slave trade, whether foreign or domestic, as to what has not been so often noticed — the mode in which it operates in giving increased coherence and stability to the system of which it is a part. Now, it does this in two ways, by bringing the resources of salubrious countries to supplement the waste of human life in torrid regions ; and, secondly, by providing a new source of profit for slaveholders, which enables them to keep up the institution when, in the absence of this resource, it would become unprofitable and disappear.

While countries depended for the supply of servile labour upon the natural increase of their own slave population, there existed an obvious limit to the range of the system and to the hardships it was capable of inflicting. Where the character of the climate, or the nature of the work to be done, was such as to be seriously prejudicial to human life, [122] slavery, if recruited from within, could only exist through great attention given to the physical requirements of the slaves. Without this, it must have become extinct by the destruction of its victims. But, a commerce in slaves once established, these natural restraints upon the fullest development of slavery are effectually removed. The rice-grounds of Georgia or the swamps of the Mississippi may be fatally injurious to the human constitution ; but the waste of human life, which the cultivation of these districts necessitates, is not so great that it cannot be repaired from the teeming preserves of Virginia and Kentucky. Considerations of economy, moreover, which, under a natural system, afford some security for humane treatment by identifying the master's interest with the slave's preservation, when once trading in slaves is practised, become reasons for racking to the uttermost the toil of the slave ; for, when his place can at once be supplied from foreign preserves, the duration of his life becomes a matter of less moment than its productiveness while it lasts. It is accordingly a maxim of slave management, in slave-importing countries, that the most effective economy is that which takes out of the human chattel in the shortest space of time the utmost amount of exertion it is capable of putting forth. "It is in tropical culture, where annual profits often equal the whole capital of plantations, that negro [123] life is most recklessly sacrificed. It is the agriculture of the West Indies, which has been for centuries prolific of fabulous wealth, which has engulfed millions of the African race. It is in Cuba, at this day, whose revenues are reckoned by millions, and whose planters are princes, that we see, in the servile class, the coarsest fare, the most exhausting and unremitting toil, and even the absolute destruction of a portion of its numbers every year, by the slow torture of overwork and insufficient sleep and rest. In our own country, is it in Maryland and Virginia that slaves fare the worst, or is it in the sugar regions of Louisiana and Texas, where the scale of profits suggests the calculation of using them up in a given number of years as a matter of economy ? Is it not notorious, that the states upon the Gulf of Mexico, in which forced labour is most productive to those who own it, are made use of by the northern slave states, not merely as markets in which to dispose of slaves as a matter of profit, but as a Botany Bay, furnished to their hands, to which their slaves are sent by way of punishment ?" [89] The slave trade thus affords the means of extending the institution in its harshest form to countries in which without this support, it either could not have been permanently maintained at all, or only in a very mitigated form, sustaining the waste of human life [124] in tropical regions from the hardier and healthier populations of barbarous countries and of temperate climes. [90]

But the benefits of commerce are reciprocal, and if slavery receives a new impulse from the slave trade in the warm regions of the South, it acquires increased stability in more temperate countries through the same cause. We have already seen the tendency of slave labour to exhaust the soil, and the rapidity with which this process proceeds, reducing to the condition of wilderness districts which fifty years before were yet untouched by the hand of cultivation. Now, this would seem to promise that the reign of slavery, if ruinous, should at least be brief, and we might expect that, when the soil had been robbed of its fertility, the destroyer would retire from the region which he had rendered desolate. And such would be the fate of slavery, were it depending exclusively on the soil for its support ; but, when trading in human beings is once introduced, a new source of profit is developed for the system, which renders it in a great degree independent of the resources of the soil. It is this, the [I25] profit developed by trading in slaves, and this alone, which has enabled slavery in the older slave states of North America to survive the consequences of its own ravages. [91] In Maryland and Virginia, perhaps also in the Carolinas and Georgia, free institutions would long since have taken the place of slavery, were it not that just as the crisis of the system had arrived, the domestic slave trade opened a door of escape from a position which had become untenable. The conjuncture was peculiar, and would doubtless by Southern theologians be called providential. The progress of devastation had reached the point at which slave cultivation could no longer sustain itself — the contingency predicted by Roanoke, when, instead of the slave running away from his master, the master should run away from his slave. A considerable emigration of planters had actually taken place, and the deserted fields were already receiving a new race of settlers from the regions of freedom, [92] The long night of slavery seemed to be passing away, and the dawn of a [126] brighter day to have arrived, [93] when suddenly the auspicious movement was arrested. A vast extension of the territory of the United States, opening new soils to Southern enterprise, exactly coincided with the prohibition of the external slave trade, and both fell in with the crisis in the older states. The result was a sudden and remarkable rise in the price of slaves. The problem of the planter's position was at once solved, and the domestic slave trade [127] commenced. Slavery had robbed Virginia of the best riches of her soil, but she still had a noble climate — a climate which would fit her admirably for being the breeding place of the South. A division of labour between the old and the new states took place. In the former the soil was extensively exhausted, but the climate was salubrious ; in the latter the climate was unfavourable to human life spent in severe toil, but the soil was teeming with riches. The old states, therefore, undertook the part of breeding and rearing slaves till they attained to physical vigour, and the new that of using up in the development of their virgin resources the physical vigour which had been thus obtained.

The charge of breeding slaves for the market is one which the citizens of Virginia, more especially when resident in Europe, are apt indignantly to deny ; [94] and, in a certain sense, the denial may not be wholly destitute of foundation. It is perhaps true that in no particular instance is a slave brought into the world for the purpose, distinctly conceived [128] beforehand, of being sold to the South. Nevertheless it is absolutely certain that the whole business of raising slaves in the Border states is carried on with reference to their price, and that the price of slaves in the Border states is determined by the demand for them in the Southern markets. "Nowhere," said Henry Clay, "in the farming portion of the United States would slave labour be generally employed, if the proprietors were not tempted to raise slaves by the high price of the Southern markets which keeps it up in their own." Of the truth of this remark an illustration was afforded in 1829, when a law having been passed by the state legislature of Louisiana interposing obstacles to the introduction of slaves into that state, within two hours after this was known the price of slaves on the breeding grounds of the North fell 25 per cent. [95] Again, at a later epoch, when the efforts of the Border slaveholders to establish slavery in California had failed, what [129] was the comment on this failure made by a candidate for the governorship of Virginia, [96] then on an electioneering tour through the state ? — that, but for this, the price of an able-bodied negro would have risen to 5,000 dollars — in other words, that the closing of the Californian mines to slave labour represented a loss to that state of 4,000 dollars per head on every first class Virginian slave. Such is the aspect under which the extension of the domain of slavery is regarded in Virginia — a point of view somewhat hard to reconcile with the air of injured virtue assumed by the 'Old Dominion' in its repudiation of the internal slave trade. [97]

Indeed it would be futile to deny — nor is it denied by the more outspoken of the Southern politicians [98] — that the markets of the South form the [130] main support of slavery in the older Slave States. Of the extent to which the trade is carried, and the important interests depending on it, some notion may be formed from its effects on the census. For the purpose of exhibiting these I shall compare the population returns of the three principal Border states, — Virginia, Maryland and Kentucky, — with those of three working states in the extreme south-west, — Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

PER CENTAGE INCREASE OF POPULATION IN THE DECADE ENDING 1850.

It will be seen from the above that, while in the former group of states the white population has progressed with, on the whole, tolerable regularity, [131] the slave population has, in two of them, scarcely advanced at all, and in the third at a rate far short of that attained by the white population. On the other hand, in the latter group — a group composed of states in which it is perfectly notorious that plantation labour is far severer than in the former — the slave population has in one instance increased with much greater rapidity than the whites, and in another at almost the same rate. Even in Louisiana the increase of the slave population has not fallen greatly behind that of the whites, although the circumstances of that state might well lead us to expect this result, being, as it is, the seat of a great commercial city with a large and rapidly growing white population, and its prevailing industry — the cultivation of sugar — being, as is well known, enormously destructive of slave life.

But we may bring out the same fact by another and still more striking comparison. From a series of tables, [99] in which the inhabitants, free and slave, are classed according to their ages, I have constructed the following statement : —

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[see image rotated]

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The significance of these proportions cannot easily be mistaken. Take, for example, Virginia. It appears that up to fifteen years of age the two populations maintain exactly their relative position, but after twenty — after the period of physical maturity has been reached — after the full-grown slave has been exported — the slave population of a sudden drops. The case of Maryland is still more striking. The slave population here gains rapidly upon the white between the ages of five and fifteen, while after twenty it undergoes an immense reduction. In Kentucky the result is perfectly analogous. Compare this with the progress of the population in the three slave-consuming states in the SouthWest. The ratio of growth is here substantially reversed. In Arkansas and Mississippi the relative position of the two races up to the age of fifteen remains almost unchanged, but no sooner do we reach the age of twenty, than in those states of severe plantation labour the slave population exhibits, in relation to the whites, a large increase. Louisiana, indeed, in this, as in the former example, seems at first glance to weaken the argument ; but in fact it strengthens it. The adult slave population, instead of gaining on the whites, slightly loses ground. But what does this prove ? Only that to which every traveller in Louisiana testifies — the frightful destruction of slave life which [134] cane-crushing on the sugar plantations entails. Yet, notwithstanding the inroads made on the slave population by this cause, and notwithstanding the support given to the whites by the rapid growth of New Orleans, the adult slave population in this state almost — such is the activity of the slave dealer — maintains its relative position. Now these are facts which no mere migration of population will account for. If a planter, with his family and its following of slaves, removed from Virginia to Arkansas, the young and old of both races would go together, and the proportion between the two populations would remain unchanged. But where slave dealing prevails in connexion with slave-breeding, this cannot happen. The slave is sold off as he arrives at his maturity, and thus at this point the proportion between the slave and free population is disturbed. The former falls behind ; the latter gains. In a word, that state of things is realized which, we find from the census returns, actually exists in the slave-breeding states of the South. [100]

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It is plain that nothing less than a regular and systematic traffic in human beings could produce such results as these in the vital statistics of a nation. As for the probable extent of this traffic, it would not be difficult to deduce this approximately from data furnished by the census ; but it is unnecessary : the task has already been performed by unquestionably competent hands. In 1830 Professor Dew [101] estimated the trade of Virginia alone at an annual export of 6,000 slaves. But we have a later estimate from a still higher authority. In 1857 the subject of the domestic slave trade was referred to a special committee of the House of Representatives of South Carolina with a view to report upon its probable [136] extent, and the conclusion arrived at by this committee [102] was that for the decade of 1840 to 1850 the number of slaves exported from the Border states (of which nearly a half came from Virginia) was not less than 235,000. This will give an annual export of 2,3,500 slaves ; and, taking these at an average value of 700 dollars — which, considering that the bulk of them were slaves in the prime of life, would probably not be an over-estimate — we arrive at a sum of 16,450,000 dollars equivalent to about £3,290,000 sterling, as the annual value of the domestic slave trade. So extensive are the interests involved in this accursed traffic.

But it will here perhaps occur to the reader that this commerce may have its hopeful side — that the constant and copious drain of slaves of which we have here the proof, may, through the exhaustion of the negro population, issue ultimately in the extinction of slavery in the states from which it proceeds. [137] This view of the case is indeed not unfamiliar to those who in America have speculated upon this subject, whether they have been the opponents or the supporters of slavery : — by the former it has been put forward as a ground for tolerating, by the latter as one for restraining, the traffic. On the occasion, for example, of the annexation of Texas, it was an argument employed by those who sought to reconcile the Northern states to this measure, that, through the new outlet which would thus be provided for slaves, a prospect would be opened of extinguishing slavery in the older states. [103] On the other hand, the possibility of this consummation has aroused the apprehensions of the South ; and the more ardent apostles of slavery have denounced the practice of "emptying" the slaves of the Border States on the more Southern countries, as savouring of disloyalty to the institution, — sacrificing — so the point has been put — to mere pecuniary considerations the vital interests of a great system, [104] In truth, however, these hopes and fears are alike without foundation. A slave trade may, indeed, — as the figures which I have quoted prove that in point of fact it does — exercise a retarding influence on the growth of the slave population in the exporting states, and it is conceivable that it might even for a time [138] effect a reduction of its numbers ; but to suppose that a cause, which renders human beings more valuable, should in the long run have the effect of exhausting the supply, would be to show but a weak faith in the reproductive powers of the human race, and would involve assumptions which have been amply refuted by the experience of this very trade. Far from conducing in the slightest degree to the decline of slavery in the older states, the inter-state traffic has tended directly to establish it, and the slave population of those states has increased steadily, though slowly, under the drain. A remarkable proof of this position has been furnished by the State of Delaware — the only one of the Border states in which the sale or removal of slaves is prohibited by law, and also the only one in which slavery shows any tendency to expire. A similar lesson is taught by the history of Virginia. Between 1830 and 1840 the number of slaves in that state underwent an actual diminution ; but in 1844 came the annexation of Texas, followed by an increased demand for slaves for the South ; and in 1850 the slave population in Virginia was found to have increased. The explanation of this is, of course, perfectly simple. Slaves in the older states being of little value for agricultural purposes, there is no inducement to encourage their increase so long as agriculture is the sole purpose to which they can be [139] turned ; but with the increase of the slave trade, their value increases, and they are, therefore, raised in greater numbers. So that, although the slave trade restrains the growth of the negro population in the exporting states, it yet gives to the system in those very states a deeper root and firmer hold. It invigorates the plant by pruning it. The phenomenon need surprise no one who has attended to the ordinary facts of emigrating countries. The immense emigration from the United Kingdom has produced scarcely a perceptible effect on its population ; and the experience of Spain and Portugal, when Spain and Portugal were colonizing countries, and that of Germany at the present day, bear testimony to the same fact — the power of population, so long as the means of subsistence do not fail, to sustain any practicable drain. But an illustration still more apposite to our present purpose is furnished by cattle breeding. It has never been found that the opening of new markets for cattle has any tendency to exhaust the breed in the countries which raise them ; and, so long as human beings are subjected to precisely the same influences as cattle, it is idle to expect a different result. In each case the power of multiplication is the same, and where the same inducement is offered, a corresponding result may be expected to follow.

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CHAPTER V. INTERNAL DEVELOPMENT OF SLAVE SOCIETIES.↩

It may be well here to trace briefly the salient features of the system which in the previous chapter it has been attempted to describe. A race superior to another in power and civilization holds that other in bondage, compelling it to work for its profit. The enslaved race, separated broadly from the dominant one in its leading physical and moral attributes, is further distinguished from it by the indelible mark of colour, which prevents the growth of mutual sympathy and transmits to posterity the brand of its disgrace. Kept in compulsory ignorance and deprived of all motive for intelligent exertion, this people can supply to its masters only the crudest form of manual labour. It is thus rendered unfit for every branch of industry which requires, in any but the lowest forms, the exercise of care, intelligence, or skill, and is virtually restricted to the pursuit of agriculture. In agriculture it can only be turned to profitable account under certain special conditions — in raising crops of a peculiar kind and upon soils of more than average fertility ; while these by its thriftless methods it tends constantly [141] to exhaust. The labour of the enslaved race is thus in practice confined to the production of a few leading staples ; but, through the medium of foreign trade, these few commodities become the means of furnishing its masters with all the conveniences and comforts of life — the product of intelligence and skill in countries where labour is free. Further, it was seen that the defects of servile labour are best neutralized, and such advantages as it possesses best turned to account, where the scale of the operations is large, — a circumstance, which by placing a premium on the employment of large capitals, has gradually led to the accumulation of the whole wealth of the country in the hands of a small number of persons. Four million slaves have thus come into the possession of masters less than one-tenth of their number, by whom they are held as chattel property ; while the rest of the dominant race, almost equalling the slaveholders and their slaves together, squat over the vast area which slave labour is too unskilful to cultivate, where, by hunting and fishing, by plunder or by lawless adventure, they eke out a precarious livelihood. Three leading elements are thus presented by the economy of slave states — a few planters cultivating the richest soils, a multitude of slaves toiling for their profit, the bulk of the white population dispersed in a semi-savage condition over a vast territory. In course of time the [142] system begins to bear its fruit. The more fertile soils of the country, tasked again and again to render the same products, at length become exhausted, and refuse any longer to yield up their riches to servile hands ; but there are new soils within reach which the plough has not yet touched, regions of high fertility, pre-eminently fitted for the cultivation of slave products, bordering however on the tropics, and unfavourable to human life when engaged in severe toil. At this point a new phase of the system discloses itself. A division of labour takes place. A portion of the slaveholders with their slave bands move forward to occupy the new territory, while the remainder, holding to their old seats, become the breeders of slaves for those who have left them, and take, as their part, the repairing from their more healthy populations the waste of slave life produced by tropical toil. Thus, as the domain of slavery is extended, its organization becomes more complete, and the fate of the slave population more harsh and hopeless. Slavery in its simple and primitive form is developed into slavery supported by a slave trade — into slavery expansive, aggressive, destructive of human life, regardless of human ties, — into slavery in its most dangerous and most atrocious form ; and for the system thus matured a secure basis is afforded by the principles of population. Such is an outline of the economy of [143] society in the Slave States of North America, as I have ventured to describe it ; and the condition of facts which it discloses goes far, as it seems to me, to establish the conclusion that it is a structure essentially different from any form of social life which has hitherto been known among progressive communities, and one which, if allowed to proceed in its normal development undisturbed by intervention from without, can only conduct to one issue — an organized barbarism of the most relentless and formidable kind.

But it may be well to pursue this inquiry somewhat further. If the germs of a future civilization are contained in the social system which has been described, in what department of it are they to be found ? Among the poor whites ? Among the slaves ? Among the slave masters ?

The poor whites, as has been shown, are the natural growth of the slave system ; their existence and character flowing necessarily from two facts — the slaves, who render the capitalists independent of their services, [105] and the wilderness, the constant feature of slave countries, which enables them to exist without engaging in regular work. There is no capital to support them as hired labourers, and [144] they have the means of subsisting, in a semi-savage condition, without it. Under these circumstances by what steps are they to advance to an improvement of their condition ?

It will perhaps be thought that with a vast unappropriated territory around them the poor whites may be expected in time to become peasant proprietors, and to cultivate the districts which they now merely occupy. This is undoubtedly what would happen with an influx of Northern settlers. It is what has actually happened in certain districts of the South which have derived their population directly from free countries. But the mass of the white people in the Southern States lack for such a lot two indispensable requisites — capital and industry. Had they the latter, they might perhaps in time acquire the former ; but regular industry is only known to them as the vocation of slaves, and it is the one fate which above all others they desire to avoid. They will for a time, indeed, when pressed for food, their ordinary resources of hunting or plunder failing them, hire themselves out for occasional services; but, so soon as they have satisfied the immediate need, they hasten to escape from the degradation of industry, and are as eager as Indians to return to their wilds. [106]

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Another means of redemption is sometimes imagined for the "mean whites." It is thought that, with the progress of population in the Slave States, they will ultimately be forced into competition with the slaves, and that, this competition once effectually commenced, the whites once engaged in regular industry, the superiority of free to servile labour will become manifest, and will gradually lead to the displacement of the latter. In this way, it is anticipated, the problem of abolishing slavery, and that of elevating the white population, may in the natural course of events be effectually solved by the same process. Unfortunately this cheering view is entirely unsustained by any foundation of fact. Population in slave communities follows laws of growth of its own. It increases, it is true, but by dispersion, not by concentration, and consequently the pressure upon the poor white, which it is assumed will force him into competition with the slave, is never likely to be greater than at the present moment. [107] In fact it has now in many districts reached the starvation point, but without producing any of the effects which are anticipated from it. But, again, the free labour of the South possesses none of that superiority to slave labour, which is [146] characteristic of free labour when reared in free communities. This is a distinction which in economic reasonings on slavery is frequently overlooked, [108] but which it is all-important to bear in mind. The free labourer reared in free communities, energetic, intelligent, animated by the impulse of acquiring property, and trained to habits of thrift, is the best productive agent in the world, and, when brought into competition with the slave, will, unless under very exceptional circumstances (such as existed when the continent was first settled), prove more than a match for him. But the free labourer of the South, blighted physically and morally by the presence of slavery, and trained in habits more suited to savage than to industrial life, easily succumbs in the competition. In fact the experiment is being constantly tried in the Southern States, and always with the same result. [109] On the relative merits of slave and [147] free labour — such free labour as the Slave States can produce — there is but one opinion among the planters. It is universally agreed that the labour of the "mean whites" [110] is more inefficient, more unreliable, more unmanageable than even the crude efforts of the slaves. If slavery in the South is to be displaced by free industry, it can never be through the competition of such free industry as this.

It does not appear, therefore, in what manner habits of regular industry can ever be acquired by the mass of the population of the Southern States while under a slave régime. The demoralization produced by the presence of a degraded class renders the white man at once an unwilling and an inefficient labourer ; and the external incidents of slavery afford him the means of existing without engaging in regular toil. The question has, in truth, passed beyond the region of speculation. For two [148] hundred years it has been submitted to the proof ; and the poor whites of the South are as far now from having made any progress in habits of regular industry as they were at the commencement of the period.

The result, then, at which we arrive is, that regular industry is not to be expected from the mass of the free people of the Southern States while slavery continues. Let us for a moment reflect upon some of the consequences involved in this single fact.

And, first, it is evident that under these conditions population in the Slave States must ever remain sparse ; for density of population is the result of concentrated wealth, and concentrated wealth flows from the steady pursuit of systematic industry. What are the facts ? Over the whole area of the Slave States the average density of population did not in 1850 [149] exceed 11.29 persons to the square mile. It is true a large portion of the region included in this average has but recently been acquired, and cannot be considered as having yet received its full complement of inhabitants. Let us, then, confine our observations to the older states. If population be capable of becoming dense under slave institutions, it should have realized this condition in Virginia. This state has been for two hundred and fifty years the seat of the Anglo-Saxon race, and the chosen field of industry : it abounds in natural advantages ; its climate is remarkably salubrious. What, then, is the result of the experiment in Virginia ? It appears from the census of 1850, that, after an industrial career of two hundred and fifty years, this country contained an average of 23 persons to the square mile ! This, however, does not adequately represent the case ; for of these 23 persons one-third [150] on an average were slaves. Deducting these, the density of population in Virginia — of population among whom knowledge is not considered contraband, of population who are capable of mixing together as fellow-citizens (which is the point essential to our argument) — the density of this population is represented by the proportion of 15 persons to the square mile ! But the peculiar feature of the case, and that which places beyond question the true solution of these phenomena, is the fact, that the districts in the state which are most thickly populated are not those of the greatest natural fertility, but the contrary. The richest districts — those in the central and eastern divisions of the state [111] — which are for the most part in the hands of wealthy planters, and are cultivated with tobacco — are less densely inhabited than the districts to the north-west, which are less richly endowed by nature, but have become the abode of a free farming population, mostly immigrants from the Northern States. It is thus scarcely an exaggeration to say (and it surely affords a striking proof how completely the whole system of slavery tends to thwart the purposes of nature) that in slave countries density of population varies inversely with the natural richness of the country — inversely, that is to say, with the means of supporting it. What is the explanation of this unparalleled [151] fact ? Let Mr. De Bow answer. "The striking fact that those districts possessing naturally the best soils are almost stationary in population, while districts of inferior soils naturally are filling up, shows not only the exhausted state of the soil in the former, but proves that the character of slave labour and the system of cultivation adopted are unfriendly to density of population." [112] But, to return, it appears that, even including the more densely peopled free-labour districts, of Virginia, the average density of the white population in that state had not in 1856 exceeded the proportion of 15 persons to the square mile. Compare this with the progress of population in an area of the Free States naturally less favourable to the multiplication of people and not so long settled, — with the area comprised by Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania — and what do we find ? Population has here, in a shorter time, and under external conditions less favourable, reached an average density of 82 persons to the square mile. For equal areas in the Free and Slave States there are thus considerably more than five persons capable of taking part in the business of civilized life in the former for one in the latter. Population under slave institutions, in fact, only increases [152] by dispersion. Fifteen persons to the square mile represent the maximum density which population under the most favourable circumstances is, with slavery, capable of attaining. [113] Now, this state of things is incompatible with civilized progress. Under such conditions social intercourse cannot exist ; popular education becomes impracticable ; roads, canals, railways, must be losing speculations ; in short, all the civilizing agencies of highest value are, by the very nature of the case, excluded. Among a people so dispersed, for example, how is popular education to be carried on ! Not to dwell upon the obstacles presented to the diffusion of knowledge by the mental habits of a people accustomed to the life of the "mean whites" — a life alternating between listless vagrancy and the excitement of marauding expeditions — the mere physical difficulties of the problem — the task of bringing together from a population so dispersed the materials of a school — would be such as might well discourage the most determined zeal. [114] Tn point of fact, all attempts at conveying [153] education to the bulk of the people in the Southern States have proved costly failures. [115] Experiments have been made in some of the states, and always with the same result. [116] The moral and physical difficulties of the problem have proved insuperable ; and the mass of the people remains, and under the present social system ever must remain, entirely uninstructed. [117]

Nor is this the only way in which sparseness of population operates unfavourably on the intellectual progress of a people. Scarcely less important than school teaching, as instruments of popular education, are the societies established for the mutual improvement of those who take part in them, such as mechanics' institutes, and literary and scientific [154] associations, of which such extensive use is made in this country and in the Northern States. But from this efficacious mode of awakening intelligence, a people, whose social institutions prevent it from attaining greater concentration than is reached by the people of the South, is entirely excluded. [118]

Lastly, how are the means of communication to be developed under such conditions ? [119] How are railways to be made profitable in a population of fifteen persons to the square mile ? Railways, no doubt, have been made in the South, but with more advantage to the travellers than to the shareholders. In [155] South Carolina a train has been known to travel a hundred miles with a single passenger. [120]

The poor whites of the South seem thus, under an inexorable law, to be bound to their present fate by the same chain which holds the slave to his. Slavery produces distaste for industry. Distaste for industry, coexisting with a wilderness which is also the fruit of slavery, disperses population over vast areas as the one condition of its increase. Among such a people the requisites of progress do not exist ; the very elements of civilization are wanting.

If, then, society is to advance in the South, we must look somewhere else than among the mass of the white population for the motive principle which is to propel it. And where are we to look ? Southern society furnishes but two other elements — the slaves and their masters. What germ of hope [156] does either of these present? If civilization is to spring up among the negro race, it will scarcely be contended that this will happen while they are still slaves ; and if the present ruling class are ever to rise above the existing type, it must be in some other capacity than as slaveholders. The whole question therefore turns ultimately on the chances of slave emancipation. Slave emancipation may, of course, be forced upon the South by pressure from without ; but the point which we have now to consider is the prospect of this result being attained in the natural course of its internal development.

And first let us observe the inherent difficulty of the problem. It was shown in a former chapter that in the system of North American slavery, obstacles exist to the emancipation of the slave which had no place among the ancients. It may now be added that the difficulties of slave emancipation in the present Slave States are far greater than those which were successfully encountered in the Northern. Owing to causes already explained, slavery had never taken very firm root in the North : it was becoming, with the growth of society, constantly less profitable : the total number of slaves formed but a small fraction of the whole population : above all, the Northern States had in the markets of the South a ready means of ridding themselves, at trifling loss, of a class which had [157] become an incumbrance. For, to borrow the words of Tocqueville, the overthrow of slavery in the Northern States was effected "by abolishing the principle of slavery, not by setting the slaves free." The Northern people did not emancipate negroes who were enslaved, but they provided for the future extinction of slavery by legislating for the freedom of their offspring. The operation of this plan may be readily supposed. The future offspring of the slave having by the law of a particular state been declared free, the slave himself lost a portion of his value in that state. But in the South these laws had no force, and consequently in the South the value of the slave was unaltered by the change. The effect, therefore, of the Northern measures of abolition was, for the most part, simply to transfer Northern slaves to Southern markets. In this way, by an easy process, without incurring any social danger, and at slight pecuniary loss, the Northern States got rid of slavery. The problem of enfranchisement in the South is of a very different character. Slavery, instead of being, as it always was in the North, but one, and an unimportant one, among many modes of industry, is there virtually the sole industrial instrument ; instead of comprising an insignificant fraction of the whole population, it comprises throughout the whole South one-third, and in some states one-half : it numbers altogether [158] four millions of people : lastly, the South is wholly without that easy means of shuffling off slavery which its markets provided for the North. The two cases are thus wholly unlike, and the spontaneous disappearance of slavery from the Northern section of the Union gives little ground to hope for a similar result in the present Slave States.

And still less warranted are we in expecting a policy of emancipation from the South by the history of British emancipation in the West Indies ; for that event was not brought about in the natural course of social improvement in those islands, but was forced upon them by the mother nation, in the face of the protests and remonstrances of their ruling classes. Instead of being the natural result of principles called into action under slave institutions, it was only accomplished with difficulty through the direct and forcible interposition of an external authority.

So far as to ancient and modern precedents : they are palpably inapplicable to the present case. But there are those who anticipate the growth of a liberal policy in the South from the gradual operation of economic causes in ultimately identifying the interests of planters with those of the general community. [121] It will be worth while briefly to examine the argument which is founded upon this view of [159] the case. It is said that free labour (regarded from a purely economic point of view — moral considerations apart) being superior to slave labour, and this principle being exemplified by the whole industrial history of the Northern and Southern States — the former, though naturally less fertile, having far outstripped the latter in the race of material prosperity, — the truth must ultimately be recognised by the slaveholders themselves, and that so soon as this happens, they will be led by self interest to adopt a policy of emancipation. The case may indeed be put more strongly than this ; for slavery has not merely thwarted the general prosperity of the South ; it may even be shown to have operated to the special detriment of the particular class for whose exclusive behoof it is maintained. For the slaveholders of the South are also its landed proprietors, and the uniform effect of slavery (as has been shown in a former part of this essay) has been, by confining cultivation to the rich soils, to prevent the growth of rent. So powerfully, indeed, has this cause operated, that it has been calculated, apparently upon good grounds, [122] that the mere difference in rent between the returns from lands of equal quality in the Free and Slave States would be more than sufficient to buy up the whole slave property of the South. By the abolition [160] of slavery in that country, therefore, not merely would the general prosperity of the inhabitants be promoted, but, by the rise of rent which would be the consequence of this measure, there would result to slaveholders a special gain — a gain which, it may reasonably be thought, would form a liberal compensation for any temporary inconvenience they might suffer from the change. Considerations so obvious, it is argued, must in the end have their effect on the minds of the ruling class in the South, and must lead them before long to abolish a system which is fraught with such baleful effects to the country and to themselves.

To the soundness of this reasoning, so far as it proves the beneficial results which would follow from the abolition of slavery, I do not think that any valid objection can be offered. It appears to me as demonstrable as any proposition in Euclid, that, extending our view over some generations, slavery has acted injuriously on every class and every interest in the South, and that its continued maintenance is absolutely incompatible with the full development of the resources of the country. Nevertheless it would, I conceive, be infinitely precarious from this position to infer that slaveholders will ever be induced voluntarily to abolish slavery. The slaveholders of the South are perfectly aware of the superior prosperity of the Free States : it is with them a [161] subject of bitter mortification and envy ; but, with the most conclusive evidence before their eyes, they persist in attributing this to every cause but the right one. [123] Supposing, however, that they are in the end convinced, by such arguments as I have referred to, of the injurious effects of their system, and that they are satisfied that the immediate loss from the abolition of slavery would be more than made good to their descendants in the future increase in the value of their land, still I apprehend that they would be as far as ever from being won over to a policy of abolition. For, whatever be the future advantages which may be expected from the change, it is vain to deny that the transition from slavery to freedom could not be effected without great, inconvenience, loss, and doubtless in many cases, ruin, to the present race of slaveholders. The accumulated results of two hundred years of tyranny, cruelty, and disregard of the first of human rights are not thus easily evaded. A sacrifice there would need to be. [124] And it is vain to expect that slaveholders, of whose system selfishness is the fundamental [162] principle, and whose profits are purchased, not merely at the cost of misery to a whole race of living men, but at the cost of the future prosperity of their own descendants, whose interests in the soil their spendthrift system anticipates — it is vain to expect that they of all men should voluntarily devote themselves for the good of their country. So long, therefore, as slaveholders have at their disposal an unlimited extent of fertile soil suited to slave products, it is, I think, vain to hope that the question of slavery will ever find its solution in economic motives. [125] But, in truth, it is idle to argue this question on purely economic grounds. It is not simply as a productive instrument that slavery is valued by its supporters. It is far rather for its social and political results — as the means of upholding a form of society in which slaveholders are the sole depositaries of social prestige and political power, as the "corner stone" of an edifice of which they are the builders — that the system is prized. Abolish slavery, and you introduce a new order of things, in which the ascendancy of the men who now rule in the South would be at an end. [126] An immigration of new men would [163] set in rapidly from various quarters. The planters and their adherents would soon be placed in a hopeless minority in their old dominions. New interests would take root and grow ; new social ideas would germinate ; new political combinations would be formed ; and the power and hopes of the party which has long swayed the politics of the Union, and which now seeks to break loose from that Union in order to secure a free career for the accomplishment of bolder designs, would be gone for ever. It is this which constitutes the real strength of slavery in the Southern States, and which precludes even the momentary admission by the dominant party there of any proposition which has abolition for its object. And in view of this aspect of North American [164] slavery, we may see how perfectly futile, how absolutely childish, is the suggestion, that the Slave party should be bought over by the Federal government through the offer of a liberal compensation, after the precedent of Great Britain dealing with her West Indian possessions. Putting aside the magnitude of the sum, which, at the price of slaves which recently prevailed, would certainly not be less than £300,000,000 sterling, and the impossibility of raising it in the present state of American credit, who that knows anything of the aims of the Southern party can suppose that the proposal, if made, would not be rejected with scorn ? [127] The suggestion supposes that men who have long held paramount influence over the North American continent, and who are probably now meditating plans of annexation and conquest, would at once abandon their position as the chiefs of an independent confederacy, and forego their ambitious schemes, for what ? — for [165] a sum of money which, if well invested, might perhaps enable them and their descendants to vegetate in peaceful obscurity !

But there is yet another influence to be taken account of in arguing this question. Slavery has not merely determined the general form and character of the social and political economy of the Southern States, it has entered into the soul of the people, and has generated a code of ethics and a type of Christianity adapted to its peculiar requirements.

At the epoch of the revolution, as has been already intimated, slavery was regarded by all the eminent men who took part in that movement as essentially an evil — an evil which might indeed be palliated as having come down to that generation from an earlier and less enlightened age, and which, having intwined itself with the institutions of the country, required to be delicately dealt with — but still an evil, indefensible on moral and religious grounds, and which ought not to be permanently endured. [128] The Convention of 1774 unanimously declared that "the abolition of domestic slavery was the greatest object of their desire." The Convention of 1787, while legislating for the continuance of slavery, resolved to exclude from the constitution the word "slave," lest it should be [166] thought that the American nation gave any sanction to "the idea that there could be property in man." Washington, a native of the South and a slaveholder, declared it to be among his first wishes to see slavery abolished by law, and in his will provided for the emancipation of his slaves. Jefferson, also a native of the South and a slaveholder, framed a plan of abolition, and declared that in the presence of slavery "he trembled for his country when he reflected that God was just ;" that in the event of a rising of slaves, "the Almighty had no attribute which could take side with slaveowners in such a contest." The other leading statesmen of that time, Franklin, Madison, Hamilton, Patrick Henry, the Randolphs, Munroe, whether from the North or from the South, whether agreeing or not in their views on the practical mode of dealing with the institution, alike concurred in reprobating at least the principle of slavery.

But it seems impossible that a whole people should live permanently in contemplation of a system which does violence to its moral instincts. One of two results will happen. Either its moral instincts will lead it to reform the institution which offends them, or those instincts will be perverted, and become authorities for what in their unsophisticated condition they condemned. The latter alternative is that which has happened in the Southern States. Slavery [167] is no longer regarded there as a barbarous institution, to be palliated with whispering humbleness as an inheritance from a ruder age ; but rather as a system admirable for its intrinsic excellence, worthy to be upheld and propagated, the last and completest result of time. [129] The right of the white man to hold the negro in permanent thraldom, to compel him to work for his profit, to keep him in enforced ignorance, to sell him, to flog him, and, if need be, to kill him, to separate him at pleasure from his wife and children, to transport him for no crime to a remote region where he is in a few years worked to death — this is now propounded as a grand discovery in ethical and political science, made for the first time by the enlightened leaders of the Southern Confederation, and recommended by that philanthropic body to all civilized nations for their adoption. [168] This Confederation, which is the opprobrium of the age, puts itself forward as a model for its imitation, and calmly awaits the tardy applause of mankind. "The ideas entertained at the time of the formation of the old Constitution," says the Vice-president of the Southern Confederacy, "were that the enslavement of the African race was in violation of the laws of nature ; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. Our new government is founded on exactly opposite ideas ; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man ; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and moral condition. This our Government is the first in the history of the world based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. ... It is upon this our social fabric is firmly planted, and I cannot permit myself to doubt the ultimate success and full recognition of this principle throughout the civilized and enlightened world. . . . This stone which was rejected by the first builders 'is become the chief stone of the corner in our new edifice." [130] Opinion in the South has long passed beyond the stage at which slavery needs to be defended by argument. The subject is now never touched but in a strain such as the freedom conquered at Marathon [169] and Plattea inspired in the orators of Athens. It is "the beneficent source and wholesome foundation of our civilization ;" an institution, "moral and civilizing, useful at once to blacks and whites ;" "the highest type of civilization yet exhibited by man." "To suppress slavery would be to throw back civilization two hundred years." "It is not a moral evil. It is the Lord's doing, and marvellous in our eyes. ... It is by divine appointment."

But slavery in the South is something more than a moral and political principle : it has become a fashionable taste, a social passion. The possession of a slave in the South carries with it the same sort of prestige as the possession of land in this country, as the possession of a horse among the Arabs : it brings the owner into connexion with the privileged class ; it forms a presumption that he has attained a certain social position. Slaves have thus in the South acquired a factitious value, and are coveted with an eagerness far beyond what the intrinsic utility of their services would explain. A Chancellor of South Carolina describes slavery as in accordance with "the proudest and most deeply cherished feelings" of his countrymen — "feelings, which others, if they will, may call prejudices." A governor of Kansas declares that he "loves" the institution, and that he votes for it because he "loves" it. Nor are these sentiments confined to [170] the slaveholding minority. The all-important circumstance is that they are shared equally by the whole white population. Far from reprobating a system which has deprived them of the natural means of rising in the scale of humanity, they fall in with the prevailing modes of thought, and are warm admirers, and, when need arises, effective defenders, of an institution which has been their curse. [131] To be the owner of a slave is the chief object of the poor white's ambition ; "quot servos pascit ?" the one criterion by which he weighs the worth of his envied superiors in the social scale.

And what is this system which is thus deeply rooted in the interests, habits, ideas, and cherished affections of the people of the Southern States ? — which excites their ardent enthusiasm, which they are now in arms to perpetuate and extend ? We have traced its principal economical and political features : let us here glance briefly at some of its moral aspects. This system then is one under which a whole race of men is deprived of all the rights and privileges of rational creatures, and consigned to a life of hopeless, unremitting toil, in order that another race may live in idleness on [171] the fruits of its labours. It is a system under which, if we are to believe its admirers, the negroes are perfectly contented, but from which they are nevertheless constantly escaping in spite of the terrors of fugitive slave laws, of blood-hounds and man-hunters — a paradise, if you will, but a paradise from which its denizens escape to the Dismal Swamp. [132] Under this system a human being, convicted of no crime, may, in strict conformity with law, be flogged at the discretion of his fellow, and may even die under the lash without entailing [172] any penalty on his murderer. [133] Under this system human beings may be, and within the last ten years have been in several instances, burned alive. All property is for the negro contraband ; the acquisition of knowledge is for him a penal offence. The marriage tie receives no legal recognition, and no practical respect. Nay, it is worse than this. Those consequences, which in civilized communities form the natural restraints on unlicensed desire, are here converted into incentives ; for the relation between father and son is, in the presence of slavery, less sacred than that between master and slave ; and the mulatto offspring of a white father is not a child but a chattel : instead of entailing responsibilities it brings to the author of its being so many dollars as a price, [134] Yes, I say that the laws of the Southern [173] States permit fathers to enslave and sell their children, and that there are fathers in the Southern States who freely avail themselves of this law. To prove that this is so we have no lack of direct testimony ; but in truth the case is not one which stands in need of testimony. The crime is proclaimed by nature herself in language which cannot be silenced. There it stands revealed in the crowds of mulattoes, quadroons, and octoroons — many of them scarcely distinguishable in colour from Europeans — who now form so large a proportion of the whole enslaved population of the South. From what source has this European blood flowed into servile veins ? From whence, but from the white caste in the South ? — from the men who commit their own flesh and blood to the charge of the brutal overseer [135] or [174] to the more brutal trader in human flesh. [136] This is an aspect of the case which I would gladly have passed by ; but, in the present state of opinion, the facts are too serious to be blinked ; and before the people of this country, which has achieved its best renown in ridding its own lands of this curse, be committed to the countenance and support of a power, the final cause of whose existence is to extend this very evil, it is important that we should clearly understand what it is we are called upon to sustain.

This, then, is the system which we have seen gaining an ever-increasing hold on Southern sentiment. The progress of events, far from conducing to its gradual mitigation and ultimate extinction, has tended distinctly in the opposite direction — to the aggravation of its worst evils and the consolidation of its strength. The extension of the area subject to the Slave Power and the increase in the slave population have augmented at once the [175] inducements for retaining the institution and the difficulty of getting rid of it ; while the ideas of successive generations, bred up in its presence and under the influence of the interests to which it has given birth, have provided for it in the minds of the people a moral support. The result is, that the position of the slave in the Southern States at the present time, so far as it depends upon the will and power of his masters, is in all respects more hopeless than it has ever been in any former age, or in any other quarter of the world. A Fugitive Slave law, which throws into shade the former atrocities of slavery, has been enacted, and, until the recent disturbances, was strictly enforced. The education of the negro is more than ever rigorously proscribed. Emancipation finds in the growth of fanatical pro-slavery opinion an obstacle more formidable even than in the laws. Propositions have been entertained by the legislatures in some states for reducing all free coloured persons to slavery by one wholesale enactment ; in others these people have been banished from the state under pain of this fate. Everything in the laws, in the customs, in the education of the people, has been contrived with the single view of degrading the negro to the level of the brute, and blotting out from his mind the hope and even the idea of freedom.

The thoroughness — the absolute disregard of all [176] consequences with which this purpose has been pursued, is but little understood in this country. History can supply no instance of a despotism more complete and searching than that which for some years past has prevailed in the Southern States. Since the attempt of John Brown at Harper's Ferry its oppression has reached a height which can only be adequately described as a reign of terror. It is long since freedom of discussion on any question connected with slavery would have been tolerated. But it is not merely freedom of discussion which is now prohibited. The design seems to have been formed of putting down freedom of thought, and of banishing from the South every trace of dissentient opinion. A system of espionage has been organized. The mail bags have in many states been freely opened, and the postmasters of petty villages have exercised a free discretion in giving or withholding the documents entrusted to their care. In the more southern states vigilance committees have been established en permanence. Before these self-constituted tribunals persons of unblemished reputation and inoffensive manners have been summoned, and, on a few days' notice, for no other offence than that of being known to entertain sentiments unfavourable to slavery, have been banished from the state where they resided ; and this in direct violation of a specific provision of the Constitution of [177] the United States. [137] Clergymen, who have broken no law, for merely discharging their duties according to their consciences have been arrested, thrown into prison, and visited with ignominious punishment. Travellers, who have incautiously, in ignorance of the intensity of the popular feeling, ventured to give temperate expression to anti-slavery opinions, have been seized by the mob, tarred and feathered, ducked, flogged, and in some instances hanged. Nay, so sensitively jealous has the feeling of the South become, that the slightest link of connexion with a suspected locality — to have resided in the North, to have sent one's children to a Northern School — is sufficient to secure expulsion from a slave state. An abolitionist in the ethics of the South is the vilest of all human beings, and every one is an abolitionist who does not reside in a slave state and share to the full the prevailing pro-slavery sentiment, [138] Such is the point which [178] civilization has readied under slave institutions. Such is the system, and such is the cost at which it is maintained. [139]

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CHAPTER VI. EXTERNAL POLICY OF SLAVE SOCIETIES.↩

In the foregoing chapters an attempt has been made to analyze the system of society presented in the Slave States, and to ascertain the direction in which, under ordinary circumstances, and in the absence of intervention from without, the development of such a system proceeds ; and the result of an examination, as well of the several elements of which the whole society is composed as of their joint action, has been to show that it is essentially retrograde in its character, containing within it no germs from which improvement can grow, and no forces competent to counteract those which press it downwards. In the remaining portion of this essay I shall endeavour to exhibit the working of this system in the politics of the Union ; and as, in relation to the people who compose it, the social system of the Slave States has been seen to be retrograde, so, in relation to other societies with which it may come into contact, it will be found to be aggressive — to be constantly urged by exigencies, which it cannot control, to extend its territory, and by an ambition not less inevitable to augment its power.

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The aggressive character of a social system deriving its strength from slavery — that is to say of a Slave Power — proceeds primarily from the well-known economic fact, already more than once adverted to — the necessary limitation of slave culture to soils of more than average richness, combined with its tendency to exhaust them. It results from this that societies based upon slavery cannot, like those founded upon free industrial institutions, take root, grow, and flourish upon a limited area. To secure their vigour, their roots must be always spreading. A constant supply of fresh soils of high fertility becomes, therefore, an indispensable requisite for the permanent industrial success of such societies. This is a fundamental principle in their political economy, and one which, we shall find, exercises a powerful influence on the course of their general history. As the principle will hereafter be frequently referred to, it is important to observe that it is one about which no controversy can be said to exist, being as fully recognized by the upholders as by the opponents of slavery. "There is not a slaveholder," says Judge Warner of Georgia, "in this house or out of it, but who knows perfectly well that, whenever slavery is confined within certain specified limits, its future existence is doomed ; it is only a question of time as to its final destruction. You may take any single slaveholding county [181] in the Southern States, in which the great staples of cotton and sugar are cultivated to any extent, and confine the present slave population within the limits of that county. Such is the rapid natural increase of the slaves, and the rapid exhaustion of the soil in the cultivation of those crops (which add so much to the commercial wealth of the country), that in a few years it would be impossible to support them within the limits of such county. Both master and slave would be starved out ; and what would be the practical effect in any one county, the same result would happen to all the slaveholding States. Slavery cannot be confined within certain specified limits without producing the destruction of both master and slave ; it requires fresh lands, plenty of wood and water, not only for the comfort and happiness of the slave, but for the benefit of the owner." [140]

It is further important to observe that the internal organization of slave societies adapts them in a peculiar manner for a career of constant expansion. "In free communities property becomes fixed in edifices, in machinery, and in improvements of the soil. In slave communities there is scarcely any property except slaves, and they are easily movable. The freeman embellishes his home ; the slaveholder finds nothing to bind him to soils which he has [182] exhausted. Freedom is enterprising, but not migratory as slavery is. It is not in the nature of slavery to become attached to place. It is nomadic. The slaveholder leaves his impoverished fields with as little reluctance as the ancient Scythian abandoned cropped pastures for fresh ones, and slaves are moved as readily as flocks and herds." [141]

Slavery thus requires for its success a constantly expanding field. It is also to be noted that within this field it is exclusive of all other industrial systems. It is true, indeed, that, as has been already observed, there exists in certain districts through the Slave States a considerable free population engaged in regular industry ; but this forms no real exception to the essential exclusiveness of slave societies. These settlements of free farmers occur only where, from some cause, slavery has disappeared from tracts of country large enough to form the abode of [183] distinct societies ; as in Western Virginia, where the exhaustion of the soil, under a long continued cultivation by slaves, compelled at one time an extensive emigration of planters ; or along the slopes of the Alleghanies, where the land is better suited to cereal crops than to cotton or tobacco ; or, again, in Texas, where the available slave force has not been sufficient to enable planters to appropriate the vast regions suddenly placed at their disposal. In these cases, no doubt, colonies of free peasants are to be found in the midst of the Slave States ; but there is here no real intermixture of the two forms of society. "The systems," says Mr. Spratt, "cannot mix." The free settlements remain in the Slave States as distinct communities [142] — oases of freedom in the vast desert of slavery — without bond of interest or sympathy to connect them with the surrounding population. Slave society is thus essentially exclusive of all other forms of social life. [143] Now this characteristic of it is as well understood by [184] the free population of the Northern States, as is the necessity to their system of a constantly expanding area by the planters of the South ; and hence it has happened that, whenever free and slave societies have come into contact on the same field, a mutual antagonism has sprung up between them. Each has endeavoured to outstrip the other in the career of colonization, and, by first occupying the ground, to keep the field open for its future expansion against the encroachments of its rival. "It has thus," says Mr. Weston, "become a race whether the negro from Texas and Arkansas, or the white labourer from Kansas and the free West, shall first reach New Mexico and the Gulf of California."

But it is less in the economic, than in the moral and social, attributes of slave societies that we must look for the motive principle of their aggressive ambition. That which the necessity for fresh soils is to the political economy of such communities a lust of power is to their morality. The slaveholder lives from infancy in an atmosphere of despotism. He sees around him none but abject creatures, who, under fearful penalties to be inflicted by himself, are bound to do his slightest, his most unreasonable, bidding. "The commerce between master and slave," says a slaveowner, "is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions — the most unremitting despotism on the one hand, and degrading submission [185] on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it. . . . The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives a loose to the worst passions, and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped with its odious peculiarities." [144] "The first notion," says Tocqueville, "which the citizen of the Southern States acquires in life, is that he is born to command, and the first habit which he contracts is that of being obeyed without resistance." The despot mood is thus early impressed on the heart of the slaveholder; and it bears fruit in his manners and life. "The existence of a dominant class necessarily leads to violence. Trained up from youth to the unrestrained exercise of will, the superior race or class naturally becomes despotic, overbearing, and impatient. In their intercourse with their inferiors this leads to unresisted oppression ; but with their equals, armed with similar power and fired by the same passions, it breaks out into fierce strife. ... In this country the relation of master and slave produces the same effect on the character of the dominant class as was formerly produced in Europe by that of lord and serf. There is the same imperious will, the same impatience of restraint, the same proneness to anger and ferocious [186] strife. The passions which are developed in the intercourse with inferiors show themselves, though in a different form, in the intercourse with equals. Thus, by an inevitable retribution, wrong is made self-chastising, and the hand of the violent man is turned against himself.

"Duelling is not the only form of this national proneness to acts of violence ; rather it is the modified form which it assumes among fair and honourable men, who, even in their anger, disdain to take advantage of an adversary, and who have at least sufficient self-command to give a semblance of reason to their passion. There are others, whose hasty impulses disdain even this slight self-restraint, who carry with them habitually the means of deadly injury, and use them on the slightest provocation. . . . The custom of carrying arms is at once a proof of proneness to violence, and a provocation to it. This habit, I am informed, prevails very extensively in the South. When coming down the Mississippi, a Colonel B—, to whom I had been introduced, pointing to a crowd of men of all ranks clustered round the cabin stove, said : 'Now, there is probably not a man in all that crowd who is not armed ; I myself have a pistol in my state-room.'" [145]

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Such are the private influences by which the slaveholder is moulded to an intense craving for power. And what scope do the institutions of the South provide for the satisfaction, on a large theatre, of the passion which they generate? In free societies the paths to eminence are various. Successful trade, the professions, science and literature, social reform, philanthropy, furnish employment for the redundant activity of the people, and open so many avenues to distinction. But for slaveholders these means of advancement do not exist, or exist in scanty measure. Commerce and manufactures are excluded by the necessities of the case. The professions, which are the result of much subdivision of employment where population is rich and dense, can have small place in a poor and thinly-peopled [188] country. Science and literature are left without the principal inducements for their cultivation, where there is no field for their most important practical applications. Social reform and philanthropy would be out of place in a country where human chattels are the principal property. Practically, but one career lies open to the Southern desirous of advancement — agriculture carried on by slaves. To this, therefore, he turns. In the management of his plantation, in the breeding, buying, and selling of slaves, his life is passed. Amid the moral atmosphere which this mode of life engenders his ideas and tastes are formed. He has no notion of ease, independence, happiness, where slavery is not found. Is it strange, then, that his ambition should connect itself with the institution around which are [189] entwined his domestic associations, which is identified with all his plans in life, and which offers him the sole chance of emerging from obscurity ?

But the aspirations of the slaveholder are not confined within the limits of his own community. He is also a citizen of the United States. In the former he naturally and easily takes the leading place ; but, as a member of the larger society in which he is called upon to act in combination with men who have been brought up under free institutions, the position which he is destined to fill is not so clearly indicated. It is plain, however, that he cannot become blended in the general mass of the population of the Union. His character, habits, and aims are not those of the Northern people, nor are theirs his. The Northern is a merchant, a manufacturer, a lawyer, a literary man, an artisan, a shopkeeper, a schoolmaster, a peasant farmer ; he is engaged in commercial speculation, or in promoting social or political reform ; perhaps he is a philanthropist, and includes slavery-abolition in his programme. Between such men and the slaveholder of the South there is no common basis for political action. There are no objects in promoting which he can combine with them in good faith and upon public grounds. There lies before him, therefore, but one alternative : he must stand by his fellows, and become powerful as the assertor and propagandist of slavery ; or failing [190] this, he must submit to be of no account in the politics of the Union. Here then again the slaveholder is thrown back upon his peculiar system as the sole means of satisfying the master passion of his life. In the society of the Union, no less than in that of the State, he finds that his single path to power lies through the maintenance and extension of this institution. Accordingly, to uphold it, to strengthen it, to provide for its future growth and indefinite expansion, becomes the dream of his life — the one great object of his existence. But this is not all : this same institution, which is the beginning and end of the slaveholder's being, places between him and the citizens of free societies a broad and impassable gulf. The system which is the foundation of his present existence and future hopes is by them denounced as sinful and inhuman ; and he is himself held up to the reprobation of mankind. The tongues and hands of all freemen are instinctively raised against him. A consciousness is thus awakened in the minds of the community of slaveholders that they are a proscribed class, that their position is one of antagonism to the whole civilized world ; and the feeling binds them together in the fastest concord. Their pride is aroused ; and all the energy of their nature is exerted to make good their position against those who would assail it. In this manner the instinct of self defence and the sentiment [191] of pride come to aid the passion of ambition, and all tend to fix in the minds of slaveholders the resolution to maintain at all hazards the keystone of their social order. To establish their scheme of society on such broad and firm foundations that they may set at defiance the public opinion of free nations, and, in the last resort, resist the combined efforts of their physical power, becomes at length the settled purpose and clearly conceived design of the whole body. To this they devote themselves with the zeal of fanatics, with the persistency and secrecy of conspirators.

The position of slaveholders thus naturally fosters the passion of ambition, and that passion inevitably connects itself with the maintenance and extension of slavery. Whether this ambition would find means to assert itself in the politics of the United States might at one time have seemed more than doubtful. From the very origin of the Republic there were causes in operation which threatened, if not vigorously encountered, to exclude the South from that influence which it aspired to attain. The institutions of the Union are based, in a large degree, on the principle of representation in proportion to numbers. But, as we saw on a former occasion, the social system of the Southern States is ill calculated to encourage the growth of population, while the institutions of the North peculiarly favour it. On [192] the formation of the Federal Union the North and the South started in this respect upon nearly equal terms ; [146] and for a while — so long as slave trading with Africa was permitted — this equality was approximately maintained. But in 1808 the African slave trade was abolished ; and the principal external source on which the South relied for recruiting its population was thus cut off. On the other hand, free emigration from Europe continued to pour into the Northern States in a constantly increasing stream ; while at the same time the natural increase of the Northern people, under the stimulus given to early marriages by the great industrial prosperity of the country, was rapid beyond precedent. From the influence of these causes, the original equality in numbers between North and South was soon converted into a decided preponderance of the North ; and the natural course of events tended constantly to increase the disproportion.

This state of things, it was obvious, threatened ultimately the political extinction of the South, incapable as it was of taking part in politics except [193] as a distinct interest. At first view, indeed, it might seem as if this consummation was not merely ultimately inevitable, but imminent. In point of fact, however, the South, far from being reduced to political insignificance, has, throughout the whole period that has elapsed since the foundation of the government, maintained paramount sway in the councils of the Union

This result, so contrary to what one might at first sight have anticipated, it is the fashion to attribute to superior capacity for politics among the Southern people ; and the theory certainly receives some countenance from the fact, that of the illustrious men who founded the republic some of the most eminent were furnished by the South. It is, however, quite unnecessary to resort to so improbable an hypothesis, as that political capacity is best nourished by institutions which tend to barbarize the whole life in order to understand the part taken by the South in the politics of the Union. The sufficient explanation is to be found in two circumstances — in the nature of the Federal Constitution, regarded in connexion with the singleness of aim and steadiness of purpose, which naturally characterize men whose interests and ideas are confined within the narrow range permitted by slave institutions.

The Federal Constitution, as is well known, was a compromise between two principles — the democratic [194] principle of representation in proportion to numbers, and the federal principle of representation according to states. In the Lower House of Congress — the House of Representatives — the former principle prevailed ; the several states of the Union sending members to this assembly in proportion to the relative numbers of their population. In the Senate — the Upper House — on the other hand, representation took place according to states — each state, without regard to extent or population, being there represented by the same number of senators. In the election of the President these two principles were combined, and the voting power of the several states was determined by adding to the number of their representatives in the Lower House the number of their representatives in the Senate — that is to say, by the proportion of members which each state respectively sent to both Houses. Such was the general character of the scheme. [147]

In the arrangement, as thus stated, there would seem to be nothing which was not calculated to give to numbers, wealth, and intelligence, their due share in the government of the country. But in applying [195] to the South the principles just described, a provision was introduced which had the effect of very materially altering, as regards that portion of the Union, the popular character of the Constitution. This was the clause enacting what is known as the three-fifths votes. The House of Representatives professed to be based on the principle of representation in proportion to population ; but, by virtue of this clause, in reckoning population slaves were allowed to count in the proportion of five slaves to three free persons. Now, when we remember that the slaves of the South number four millions in a population of which the total does not exceed twelve millions, it is not difficult to perceive what must be the effect of such an arrangement upon, the balance of forces under the Constitution. In the Presidential election of 1856, the slave representation was nearly equal to one-third of the whole Southern representation ; from which it appears that the influence of the South in the general representation of the Union was, in virtue of the three-fifths vote, nearly one-half greater than it would have been had the popular principle of the Constitution been fairly carried out. But [196] the influence of the South, as we formerly saw, merely means the influence of a few hundred thousand slaveholders ; the whole political power of the Slave States being in practice monopolized by this body. The case, therefore, stands thus : under the local institutions of the Slave States, the slaveholding interest — a mere fraction in the whole population — predominates in the South ; while, under this provision of the Federal Constitution, the South acquires an influence in the Union by one-half greater than legitimately belongs to it. It is true this would not enable the Southern States, while their aggregate population was inferior to that of the Northern, to command a majority in the Lower House by means of their own members. But we must remember that the South is a homogeneous body, having but one interest to promote and one policy to pursue ; while the interests and aims of the North are various, and its councils consequently divided. "The selfish, single-purposed party," says Mr. Senior, [148] "to which general politics are indifferent, which is ready to ally itself to Free-traders or to Protectionists, to Reformers or to Anti-reformers, to Puseyites or to Dissenters, becomes powerful by becoming unscrupulous. If Ireland had been an independent country, separated from England, the Ultra-Catholic party, whose only object is the domination of the [197] clergy and of the Pope, would have ruled her. This is the source of the influence of a similar party in France. The Clerical, or Jesuit, or Popish, or Ultramontane faction — whatever name we give to it — has almost always obtained its selfish objects, because those objects are all that it cares for. It supported the Restoration, its priests blessed the insurgents of February, 1848, and it now worships Louis Napoleon. The only condition which it makes is ecclesiastical and Popish supremacy, and that condition the governor for the time being of France usually accepts.

"Such a party is the Southern party in the United States." Its single aim has been the consolidation and extension of slavery ; and to the accomplishment of this end it has. always been ready to sacrifice all other interests in the country, and, if necessary, the integrity of the Union itself. We may see, then, in what consists the vaunted aptitude for politics exhibited by Southern men : it lies simply in the intense selfishness and utter absence of scruple with which they have persistently pushed their object. They have acted steadily together — a course for which no political virtue was necessary where there was but a single interest to promote, and that interest their own. They have contrived, by an unscrupulous use of an immense patronage, to detach from the array of their opponents a section sufficiently [198] large to turn the scale of divisions in their favour : — in other words, they have been successful practitioners in the art of political jobbery. Lastly, they have worked on the apprehensions and the patriotism of the country at large by the constantly repeated threat which they have now proved themselves capable of putting in force — of dissolving the Union. [149]

The actual inferiority in population of the Southern to the Northern States, even under the peculiar advantage conferred by the three-fifths clause, rendered it necessary that the slaveholders should procure an ally among the Northern people ; and this indispensable ally they found in the Democratic party. It has been frequently remarked upon with surprise that, in seeking a political connexion, the [199] South — whose social and political system is intensely aristocratic — should have attached itself to that party in the Union in which the democratic principle has been carried to the greatest extreme. But the explanation is to be found in the circumstances of the case. The peculiarity of the industrial and social economy of the Southern States led them from the first to lean to the doctrine of state rights, as opposed to the pretensions of the central government ; and the doctrine of state rights is a democratic doctrine. On this fundamental point, therefore, the principles of the Southern oligarchy and those of the Northern democracy were the same. But the alliance was not destitute of the cement of interest and feeling. The Democratic party had its principal seats in the great towns along the Northern seaboard ; and between the capitalists of these towns and the planters of the South the commercial connexion had always been close. Capital is much needed under a slave system, and is at the same time scarce. In the Northern cities it was abundant. To the capitalists of the Northern cities, therefore, the planters in need of funds for carrying on their industry had recourse ; and a large amount of democratic capital came thus to be invested on the security of slave property. A community of interest was in this way established. But there was also a community of sentiment ; for the Northern [200] cities had formerly been the great emporia of the African slave trade, and had never wholly abandoned the nefarious traffic ; and the tone of mind engendered by constant familiarity with slavery in its worst form naturally predisposed them to an alliance with slaveholders. Widely sundered, therefore, as were the Southern oligarchy and the Democratic party of the North in general political principle, there was enough in common between them to form the basis of a selfish bargain. A bargain, accordingly, was struck, of which the consideration on the one side was the command of the Federal government for the extension of slavery and, on the other, a share in the patronage of the Union. On these terms a coalition between these two parties, so opposed in their general tendencies, has, almost from the foundation of the republic, been steadily maintained ; and in this way the South — vastly inferior though it has been to its competitor in wealth, population, and intelligence — in all the conditions to which political power attaches in well-ordered states — has, nevertheless, contrived to exercise a leading influence upon the policy of the Union.

These considerations will suffice to explain how the South has been enabled, even when in a minority, to engage with success the representatives of the North. In the Lower House of Congress it has [201] been always of necessity in this position ; representation being here in proportion to population, in which, even including slaves, the South is inferior to its rival. But in the Upper House — the House which under the Constitution enjoys the most important prerogatives and the highest influence — the South has found itself at less disadvantage. In the Senate, as has been already stated, representation takes place according to states ; each state returning two members without regard either to the number of its inhabitants or to the extent of its territory. To maintain itself, therefore, on an equal footing with the North in this assembly, the South had only need to keep the number of slave states on an equality with that of the free ; and this did not seem to be beyond its power. For, the tendency of slavery being to disperse population, a given number of people under a slave régime would naturally cover a larger space of country, and consequently would afford the materials for the creation of a greater number of states, than the same number under a régime of freedom. What, therefore, the South required to secure its predominance in the Senate, was a territory large enough for the creation of new slave states as fast as the exigencies of its politics might demand them. To keep open the territory of the Union for this purpose has, in consequence, always been a capital object in the politics [202] of the South ; and in this way a political has been added to the economic motive for extended territory. Two forces have thus been constantly urging on the Slave Power to territorial aggrandisement — the need for fresh soils, and the need for slave states. Of these the former — that which proceeds from its industrial requirements — is at once the most fundamental and the most imperative ; but it has not been that which, in the actual history of the United States, has been most frequently called into play. In point of fact, the political motive has in a great measure superseded the economic. The desire to obtain fresh territory for the creation of slave states, with a view to influence in the Senate, has carried the South in its career of aggression far beyond the range which its mere industrial necessities would have prescribed. Accordingly, for nearly a quarter of a century — ever since the annexation of Texas — the territory at the disposal of the South has been very much greater than its available slave force has been able to cultivate ; and its most urgent need has now become, not more virgin soils on which to employ its slaves, but more slaves for the cultivation of its virgin soils. [150] The important bearing [203] of this change on the views of the Slave Power will hereafter be pointed out : for the present, it is sufficient to call attention to the fact.

A principle of aggressive activity, in addition to that which is involved in the industrial necessities of slavery, has thus been called into operation by the conditions under which the Slave Power is placed in the Senate. But we should here be careful not to overrate the influence exercised on that Power by its position in the Federal Union. It would, I conceive, be an entire mistake to suppose that this desire for extended territory, which, under actual circumstances, has shown itself in the creation of slave states with a view to influence in the Senate, is in any such sense the fruit of the position of the South in the Federal Union as that we should be justified in concluding that, in the event of the severance of the Union, the South would cease to desire an extension of its territory on political grounds. Such a view would, in my opinion, imply an entire misconception of the real nature of the forces which have been at work. The lust of dominion, which is the ruling passion of the Slave Power, is not accidental but inherent — has its source, not in the constitution of the Senate, but in the fundamental institution of the Slave States ; and the lust [204] of dominion, existing in an embodied form in a new continent, cannot but find its issue in territorial aggrandisement. This by no means depends upon speculative inference. It admits of proof, as a matter of fact, that the projects of the South for extending its domain have never been more daring, and have never been pushed with greater energy, than during the last five years [151] — the very period in which the Southern leaders have been maturing their plans for seceding from the Union. The Federal connexion may have facilitated the ambitious aims of the South while the Federal government was in its hands, but, far from being the source of its ambition, it is because it offers, under the changed conditions, impediments to the expanding views of the more aspiring minds of the South, that the attempt is now made to break loose from Federal ties. Extended dominion is in truth the very purpose for which the South has engaged in the present struggle ; and the thought which now sustains it through its fiery ordeal is (to borrow the words of the ablest advocate of the Southern cause) the prospect of "an empire in the future . . . extending from the home of Washington to the ancient palaces of Montezuma— uniting the proud old colonies of England with Spain's richest and most romantic [205] dominions — combining the productions of the great valley of the Mississippi with the mineral riches, the magical beauty, the volcanic grandeur of Mexico." [152] In plain terms, the stake for which the South now plays is Mexico and the intervening Territories. The position of the Slave Power in the Union has thus determined the mode, not supplied the principle, of its aggressive action. It has brought out into more distinct consciousness, and presented in a more definite shape, the connexion between the ruling passion of the Slave Power and the natural means for its gratification. But the passion and the means for its gratification were there independently of the political system of the United States ; and the Slave Power, with a vast unoccupied or half-peopled territory around it, could not have failed under any circumstances, in the Union or out of it, to find in the appropriation of that territory its natural career.

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CHAPTER VII. THE CAREER OF THE SLAVE POWER.↩

The aggressive ambition of the Southern States has been traced in the last chapter to two principles — the economic necessities forced upon them by the character of their industrial system, and the growth of passions and habits, generated by the presence of slavery, which require for their satisfaction political predominance. In the present chapter I propose to show how these two principles have operated in the actual history of the United States.

At the time of the establishment of the Federal Union the position of slavery in North America was that of an exceptional and declining institution. Many circumstances conspired to produce this result. The war of independence had kindled among the people a spirit of liberty which was strongly antagonistic to compulsory bondage. In the leaders of the revolt this spirit burned with peculiar intensity ; and though many of them were natives of the South and slaveholders, they were almost to a man opposed to the system, and anxious for its abolition. From the Northern States, where slavery had originally been planted, it was rapidly disappearing. In [207] the unsettled territory then at the disposal of the central government [153] — notwithstanding that this territory had been ceded to it by a slave state — the institution was by an ordinance of the central government proscribed. Economic causes were also tending to its overthrow. The crops which are adapted to slave cultivation are, as we have seen, few in number. Those which at this time formed the principal staples of the slave states of the Union were rice, indigo, and tobacco. The last was already produced in quantities more than sufficient for the market; and in the two former India was rapidly supplanting the United States. Sugar was not yet grown in the Union. Cotton was still an unimportant crop. But it happened that about this time several causes came into operation, which in their effect completely reversed the direction of events, drove back the tide of freedom, and gave to slavery a new vitality and an enlarged career. It was now that the steam engine, having undergone the improvements of Watt, was first applied on a large scale to manufacturing industry. Contemporaneously the inventions of Hargreaves, Arkwright, and Crompton in cotton spinning had been made. [208] But these inventions, momentous as they were, would have failed in great part of their effect, had they not been supplemented by another — the invention of the saw-gin by Whitney. Previously to this invention the only cotton grown in America, which was available for the general purposes of commerce, was that which was known as the Sea Island kind. This was long-fibred and only grew in a few favoured localities. The bulk of the cotton crop consisted of the short-fibred varieties, but the difficulty of separating the seed from the wool in this species of the plant by the methods then in use, was so great as to render it for the ordinary purposes of cotton manufacture of little value. It was to overcome this difficulty that Whitney addressed himself ; and the success of his invention was so complete, that the whole American crop came at once into general demand.At the same time, while these causes were conducing to a great increase in the general consumption of cotton, a vast territory, eminently adapted for the cultivation as well of this as of most other slave products, came into the possession of the United States. The combined effect of all these occurrences was to give an extraordinary impulse to the cultivation of cotton, and cotton being pre-eminently a slave product, and moreover only suited to those districts of the United States where slavery was already established, this was followed [209] by a corresponding extension of slavery. In a few years after Whitney's invention, the exports of cotton from the United States were decupled ; by the year 1810, they had been multiplied more than a hundredfold, and, from being a product of small account, cotton rapidly rose to be the principal staple of the Southern States.

The early progress of the Southern planters, under the stimulus thus given to their enterprise, attracted little observation. To the west of the original slave states — Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia — lay extensive districts still unsettled, well suited for cultivation by slave labour, and from which it was not in the power of the government of the United States to exclude it. Kentucky, which had been an integral portion of Virginia, had been slaveholding from its original settlement, and subsequently retained slavery in the exercise of its right to legislate for its domestic concerns. Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi were formed out of Territory which had been ceded to the central government by North Carolina and Georgia, but on the express condition that it should be reserved for slave settlement. [154] Over these regions, therefore, the planters could carry their institution without encountering any obstacle. But in 1804 an immense range of country was gained to the United [210] States by purchase from France, with respect to which the authority of Congress was entirely unrestrained, and which, including some of the richest portions of the valley of the Mississippi from its junction with the Missouri to its mouth, offered equal attractions to settlers from both divisions of the Union. This was the Territory of Louisiana, out of which the States of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, and Kansas have since been formed ; and it was here that the rival pretensions of the two systems of freedom and slavery first came into collision.

Over the Territory thus acquired the authority of Congress was, as I have just intimated, actually uncontrolled. It, in fact, stood, in its relations to the central government, on precisely the same footing with that large tract known as the NorthWestern Territory, which had at an earlier period, by cession from Virginia, come into possession of the United States, and for the government of which provision had been made by the celebrated ordinance of 1787. This ordinance had been enacted by Congress while yet constituted under the Articles of Confederation, and it has been questioned whether, in issuing it while so constituted, Congress did not exceed its proper powers. [155] The question is, however, [211] curious rather than important ; for in framing the Constitution of the United States an article was introduced to provide for this very case. By this article it was enacted that "Congress should have power to dispose of, and make all needful rules and regulations respecting, the Territory or other property belonging to the United States." In the absence, therefore, of special conditions restraining this power, the competency of Congress, under the Constitution, to legislate for the Territories was placed by this article beyond dispute ; and in point of fact Congress has on more than one occasion exercised the authority thus conferred in the prohibition of slavery. [156] There was, consequently, no legal barrier to applying to the new acquisition obtained from France the same rule which had by the ordinance of 1787 been applied to the NorthWestern Territory. But there were practical difficulties in the way. Slaves already existed in considerable numbers, in some portions of the Territory of Louisiana ; and when the occasion arose for providing for the government of the remainder, it happened that the attention of the North was fully occupied with its foreign relations ; for this was the time when those negotiations with England were in progress which resulted in the war of [212] 1812. These circumstances were favourable to the advances of the Slave Power. From the basis of operations supplied by the French slave colony at the mouth of the Mississippi the planters rapidly carried their institution along the western bank of that river. By degrees they reached the district which now forms the State of Missouri, and by the year 1818 had acquired there so firm a footing as to be enabled to claim for it admission into the Union as a slave state.

The admission of Missouri to the Union forms for many reasons an epoch in the grand struggle between free and slave labour in North America. It was on this occasion that both parties appear first to have become sensible of the inherent antagonism of their respective positions, and to have put forth their whole strength in mutual opposition. The contest was carried on with extraordinary violence, and was terminated by a compromise, which was long considered in the light of a national compact irrevocably binding on the combatants on both sides. The occasion being of this importance, it is desirable that we should appreciate with as much precision as possible the stake which was at issue, and the motives which animated the contending parties.

And here, though at the risk of wearying the reader, it may be well once more to repeat that the [213] aggressive character of the Slave Power has been traced to two principles — the one economic, proceeding from the necessity to slavery of a constant supply of fresh soils ; the other political, having its roots in that passion for power which the position of slaveholders — as a dominant race, isolated from their equals, and shut out from the pursuits which distribute the energies of free communities into various channels — inevitably engenders. Again, it has been seen that this latter principle, under the Constitution of the United States, exerts itself chiefly in the effort to increase Southern representation in the Senate through the creation of new slave states. Lastly, it has appeared that the system of society which slavery produces is in its nature an exclusive system — its presence acting as a cause of repulsion towards free societies — and that, consequently, when these two forms of society come into contact on the same territory, an inevitable antagonism springs up between them, an antagonism which displays itself in the efforts which they make to outstrip each other in a race of colonization, each side endeavouring by prior occupation of the soil to exclude its rival and keep open for itself a field for future growth.

These being the principles which governed the conflicting interests, we shall find that the stake which was at issue in the Missouri controversy [214] was well calculated to call them actively into play.

The position of Missouri is one of the most commanding in the central portion of North America. Possessing great agricultural and mineral resources, it is watered by two of the noblest rivers in the continent— the Mississippi and the Missouri. It is in the direct line of movement westward from the Free States. If established as a free state, it would become a centre of colonization for the North, from which free labour would pour along the valleys of the Mississippi, the Missouri, and the Arkansas, and thence to Northern Texas. On the other hand, if occupied by slave institutions, it would cut off the natural expansion of the Free States, and turn the stream of free emigration in the direction of the north-west — to less fertile and less genial regions. But the political consequences depending upon the settlement of this question were not less momentous than the industrial and social. When the proposal for the admission of Missouri was first brought before Congress, the Free and the Slave States were exactly equal in number. The admission of Missouri as a slave state would just turn the scale in favour of the South, and, by consequence, give it a superiority in the Senate — a superiority, which, in conjunction with the advantages it possessed in the Lower House in virtue of its capacity for [215] combined action, could scarcely fail to render it the paramount power in the Union. The success of the South, moreover, in this instance, owing to the commanding geographical position of Missouri, would open for it the path to future conquests ; for, by diverting the stream of Northern emigration to the north-west, it would secure for the future use of the Slave Power the vast reach of fertile territory lying between that state and Texas — an area which comprised some of the richest and best watered lands within the domain of the Republic. The terms, therefore, on which Missouri should be admitted to the Union became a question of prime importance, in connexion with the present and future interests of slave and free institutions on the continent of North America.

Accordingly, no sooner was the proposition made for the admission of Missouri to the Union, than the North rose energetically against the demand, and a violent political contest ensued. It lasted for nearly three years, and was terminated by the celebrated Compromise which has become a landmark in American history. Under this settlement Missouri was received into the Union as a slave state, on the condition that in future slavery should not be carried north of the parallel 36° 30' of north latitude. In all essential respects this was a victory for the slaveholders. They obtained all that they then desired [2l6] — the most commanding position in central America, a path to future conquests, a recognized footing in the Territory of the Union ; and in return for this they gave but a naked promise, to be fulfilled at a future time, and which could be revoked as easily as it was given. Their triumph was slightly qualified by the admission about the same time of Maine as a free state, but it was sufficiently complete, and it entailed all the consequences which might have been, and which were, foreseen to be involved in it. From the passing of the Missouri Compromise down to the Presidential election of 1860 the predominance of the Slave Power in the politics of the Union has suffered no effectual check.

The episode of the Seminole war — the next prominent scene in which the Slave Power figured — though sufficiently costly and humilating to the United States, need not detain us here at any length. It was little more than a protracted slave-hunt, carried on with circumstances of more than usual cruelty, by means of the forces of the Union, against the Indians of Florida to whom a multitude of slaves had escaped. In this war Oceola, the celebrated Indian chief, was treacherously captured by two American generals, while "holding a talk" with them. In this war also the soldiers of the Union allowed themselves to be disgraced by co-operating with bloodhounds, imported for the purpose from [217] Cuba, in hunting down the Indians. The general who commanded the Union forces in this ignoble service, and who is said to have lent his sanction to these atrocities, was General Zachary Taylor, afterwards rewarded for his zeal in the cause of the Slave Power by elevation to the Presidency. The war lasted seven years, cost the country, it is estimated, 40,000,000 dollars, and resulted in the capture of a few hundred slaves.

If the Seminole war led to no important results, it was far otherwise with the annexation of Texas. This transaction has long passed into a byeword for unprovoked and unscrupulous plunder of a weak by a strong power. The designs of its authors have always been notorious. Still, as affording a typical example of a mode of aggression which has since been frequently employed, and is probably not yet obsolete, it may be well to recall some of its leading incidents at the present time.

Texas, as all the world knows, was before its annexation to the Union a province of Mexico — a country at peace with the Union, and anxious to cultivate with it friendly relations. Mexico, however, was a weak state, still fresh from the throes of revolution. The district in question was one of great fertility, possessing in this respect, as well as in its climate and river communications, remarkable advantages for slave settlement : it was, [218] moreover, but very thinly peopled, and was separated by an immense distance from the seat of government. So early as 1821, while Spanish authority was still maintained in Mexico, three hundred families from Louisiana were permitted to settle in this tempting region, under the express condition that they should submit to the laws of the country. By this means a footing was obtained in the district. The original immigrants were in time followed by others, who like their predecessors undertook to conform to the laws of Mexico ; and for some years the proceedings of the new settlers were conducted with proper respect for the authority of the state in which they had taken up their abode. But this aspect of affairs did not long continue. As the colony increased in numbers and wealth, it became evident to the slaveowners of the neighbouring states that they had a "natural right" to the territory. It offered an admirable field for slave cultivation ; it was in their immediate proximity ; of all claimants they were the strongest and "smartest:" in short, they wanted the country, and felt themselves able to take it ; and they resolved it should be theirs. "Manifest destiny" beckoned them forward, and they prepared, with reverent submission to the decrees of Providence, to fulfil their fate. [157]

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The agency by which the annexationists proceeded to give effect to their natural right was land speculation. Grants of extensive districts were corruptly obtained from local bodies which had no competency to make them ; these were made the basis for a creation of scrip, which was thrown in large quantities upon the markets of the United States. To give an idea of the scale on which these transactions were carried on, one grant, obtained from the legislature of Coahuila, conveyed in perpetuity to American citizens, in direct violation of the laws of Mexico, no less than four hundred square leagues of the public land — an area as large as Lancashire — for a consideration of 20,000 dollars !In addition to transactions of this kind, a manufacture of titles purely fictitious was freely carried on. By this means great numbers of the people in the United States became the possessors of nominal titles to land in Texas — titles, which, being of course unrecognized by the central authority in Mexico, could only be substantiated by setting aside that authority. "Texan independence could alone legalize the mighty frauds of the land speculators. Texas must be wrested from the country to which she owed allegiance, that her soil might pass into the hands of cheating and cheated foreigners."

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But the motive of rapacity was reinforced by a stronger one. Mexico from the moment of her independence had shown a creditable determination to uphold the most essential of human rights. By a law, passed shortly after her severance from Spain, slavery was abolished in her dominions, and prohibited for all future time. Such a law was far from being in keeping with the views of the new settlers. Accordingly, they proceeded to evade it by various artifices. The most usual expedient was that of introducing slaves into the country under the guise of apprentices, the term of whose service commonly extended to ninety-nine years. On the point, however, of maintaining freedom of labour in their dominions, the Mexican authorities were in earnest, and the move of the settlers was met by a decree of the legislatures of Coahuila and Texas, annulling all indentures of labour for a longer period than ten years, and providing for the freedom of children born during apprenticeship. But slaveholders were not to be so baffled. "The settled invincible purpose of Mexico to exclude slavery from her limits created as strong a purpose to annihilate her authority. The project of dismembering a neighbouring republic that slaveholders and slaves might overspread a region which had been consecrated to a free population, was discussed in the newspapers as coolly as if it were a matter of [ 221] obvious right and unquestioned humanity." [158] The plot having been carried to this point, the consummation of the plunder was easy. A conspiracy was hatched ; a rebellion organized ; filibusters were introduced from the border states ; and a population which at the commencement of the outbreak did not number twenty thousand persons, asserted its independence, was recognized by the Federal Government, and, in the face of the strenuous opposition of the Northern States, with little delay annexed to the Union. [159]

The annexation of Texas was too successful a stroke of policy not to be regarded as a precedent. It was accordingly followed by the Mexican war of 1846, which resulted in an easy victory over an unequal antagonist. By the treaty concluded between the United States and Mexico in 1848, the [222] immense range of country, extending from Texas to the Pacific in one direction, and from the present frontier of Mexico to the territory of Oregon in the other, and including the magnificent prize of California, was added to the domain of the Republic. The disposal of this opulent spoil became at once a subject of overwhelming interest, and for two years the Union was shaken by the contests which it produced. The point on which the immediate interest centred was California. Was it to be a free or a slave state ? The Southern party which had forced on the war had no other intention than to appropriate this, its richest fruit ; but the discovery of gold in the alluvial sands of the Sacramento, just at the time when the annexation was accomplished, had attracted thither from the North a large preponderance of free settlers, and these pronounced loudly for free institutions. The question was settled, as so many similar questions had been settled, by a compromise. The Slave party consented to waive its claim, but not without stipulating for a concession in return. The admission of California as a free state was purchased by the Fugitive Slave Law. [160] The price was a shameful [223] one ; yet it seems certain that this transaction forms an exception to the ordinary course of dealing between the Slave Power and its opponents, and that in the event the balance of advantage lay largely with the Free States. The Fugitive Slave Law has been for the Slave Power a questionable gain. Amongst its first fruits was Uncle Tom's Cabin. On the other hand, the acquisition of California has been a solid advantage for the free party. A free state has thus been established in the rear of the Slave Power, a centre henceforward for free immigration, and probably destined at no distant time to play an important part in the struggle between the rival principles. Thus, by the accident of a gold discovery, the well laid plans of the Slave party were frustrated, and a war which was undertaken by slaveholders in the interest of slavery has eventuated in a serious blow to their power.

The differences arising out of the conquests made in the Mexican war having been adjusted by the compromises of 1850, the Slave Power was again at liberty to look around it and to meditate new acquisitions. The Territory which had fallen to slavery under the Missouri Compromise had now been appropriated ; Florida had also been acquired ; Texas had been annexed ; New Mexico lay open, but for the present it was too distant for settlement, and the numerous tribes of Indians [224] which inhabited it made it an undesirable abode for slaveholders, whose experience in Florida naturally rendered them averse to such neighbours. But the territory of Kansas and Nebraska was comparatively close at hand, and was inviting from its fertility and salubrity. On political grounds, moreover, there was need that the Slave Power should bestir itself. The occasion was not unlike that which had preceded the admission of Missouri to the Union. From the passing of the Missouri Compromise down to the year 1850 the balance between the Free and Slave States had been fairly preserved. The North had during that time acquired Michigan, Iowa, and Wisconsin ; the South, Arkansas, Florida, and Texas ; the natural expansion of the one section had been steadily counterpoised by the factitious annexations of the other. But the admission of California as a free state had disturbed this equilibrium. To restore it there was need of a new slave state ; and where could this be more conveniently placed than in the rich contiguous Territory of Kansas ?

But to the realization of this scheme there was an obstacle in the way. The Territory of Kansas was part of the great tract obtained by purchase from France in 1804, and being north of the line traced by the Missouri Compromise, was therefore by the terms of that measure withdrawn from the field of slave [225] settlement. Now, the Missouri Compromise was something more than an ordinary legislative act. It was a compact between two great opposing interests, in virtue of which one of those interests obtained at the time valuable consideration on the condition of abstaining from certain pretensions in the future. It was, moreover, eminently a slaveholders' measure. "It was first brought forward by a slaveholder — vindicated by slaveholders in debate — finally sanctioned by slaveholding votes — also upheld at the time by the essential approbation of a slaveholding President, James Munroe, and his cabinet, of whom a majority were slaveholders, including Mr. Calhoun himself." [161] The measure was thus binding on the Slave Party by every consideration of honour and good faith. But honour and good faith have always proved frail bonds in restraining the ambition of the Slave Power. The Missouri Compromise had served its end. Under it the most commanding central position in the continent had been secured. Under it Arkansas had been added to the slave domain. There was nothing more to be gained by maintaining it. The plea of unconstitutionality, therefore, — "like the plea of usury after the borrowed money has been enjoyed" — was set up. In passing the Missouri Compromise Congress was said to have exceeded its competence. It was not for it to "legislate" [226] freedom or slavery into the Territories. This was a question to be determined by the inhabitants of those Territories, whose right it was to "regulate their domestic institutions in their own way." Accordingly, in 1854, a bill known as the Kansas and Nebraska Bill was introduced by Mr. Douglas, a Northern democrat and an aspirant to the Presidency. By this bill the Missouri Compromise was abrogated, and in its place a principle was established, popularly known as that of "squatter sovereignty," by which it was resolved that the future settlement of the Territories should be determined. The principle is thus described in the words of the act : — "It being the true intent and meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any state or territory, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States." By this plausible measure — plausible because it appeared to extend to the settlement of the question of slavery the democratic principle which was acknowledged as the basis of the general government — the inconvenient restraints of the Missouri Compromise were got rid of, and the ground was cleared for the operations of the Slave Power.

Meanwhile, however, the North, aroused by the discussions which had taken place to a sense of the [227] importance of the crisis, was preparing to try issues with its opponent on the ground which it had chosen. On the 30th of May, 1854, the territory of Kansas was by Act of Congress thrown open to settlers ; and at once from all quarters of the Free States crowds of emigrants flocked to the debatable land. The work of settlement was pushed with characteristic ardour. The land was rapidly cleared ; cultivation was commenced ; the foundations of towns were marked out : the whole country glowed with the bustle of colonizing activity. In a few months the free settlers had acquired a decided preponderance over their rivals in the new territory ; and all things seemed to promise — the will of the inhabitants being the arbiter of the question — that Kansas would ere long be peaceably enrolled in the Union as a Free State. But the Slave Power had other resources in store. It could not, and probably did not, hope to triumph on a fair field in a colonization struggle with the North. In all the qualifications requisite for such a struggle the North was immeasurably its superior. It had at its disposal a vastly larger population, and this population, energetic, intelligent, and enterprising, was in all essential respects far better adapted to the work in hand than any which the South could bring against it. But it was not by fair means that the South hoped to attain its object. Kansas adjoined [228] Missouri. In Missouri, as in all the Slave States, there was a "mean white" population — a population utterly unfit for the work of colonization, but well qualified and well disposed to take part in any expedition which promised rapine and blood. It was on the services of this people that the Slave Power relied for the success of its scheme. It could not out-colonize the freesoilers from the North, but it could, it was hoped, make the territory too hot to hold them, and ultimately, being left master of the field, it might occupy it at leisure. This, however, was not its only resource. In the government at Washington it had a sure ally, which, though affecting to disapprove, could be depended upon to connive at, and when necessary to sustain, its lawless proceedings. Resting upon these supports, the Slave Power took its measures. It was necessary, in the first place, that a staff of functionaries should be appointed for the Kansas territory. Of these the nomination lay with the President, and needed to be confirmed by the Senate. But the President was the nominee of the South, and in the Senate the South was all-powerful. There was, therefore, no difficulty in securing officials on whom the South could thoroughly rely. Meantime preparations were made for active operations. Bands of border ruffians were mustered on the Missouri frontier, and held in leash to be let slip at the decisive moment. [229] That moment at length arrived. On the 29th of November, 1854, the infant Territory was to elect a delegate to appear and speak in its behalf in the national Congress. On that day the myrmidons of slavery, led by experienced filibusters from the South, rushed upon the scene, seized by force upon the ballot-boxes, and crushed all free action among the inhabitants. On the 30th of March following the Territorial legislature was to be chosen. The invasion was repeated on a larger scale and with a more complete organization. Armed violence was now reduced to system. Again and again were these raids renewed with circumstances of ever-increasing atrocity, turning the Constitution into a mockery — a pliant instrument in the hands of a reckless faction. Under these auspices the elections were held. The result was the return, by a population of whom the great majority were freesoilers, of a pro-slavery delegate, the erection of a proslavery legislature, and the promulgation of a proslavery constitution.

Some of the provisions of this strange instrument deserve to be recorded. Taking the laws of their own state as their model, the invaders, in the first place, re-enacted in the gross the code of Missouri. But more stringent measures than the Missourian code contained were required to meet the present emergency. Accordingly, all persons holding anti-slavery [230] opinions were by a single stroke disfranchised. On the other hand — the object being to rule the territory through the armed rabble of Missouri — it was enacted that every one might vote, whether resident or not, who, holding opinions favourable to slavery, should pay one dollar on the day of election, and swear to uphold the Fugitive Slave Law and the Nebraska Bill. The ideas which the Slave Power entertained on the subject of freedom of the press may be gathered from one enactment, which provided that the advocacy of antislavery opinions should be treated as felony, and punished with imprisonment and hard labour; while its notions of lenity are illustrated by its mode of dealing with the offence of facilitating the escape of slaves. Against this — of all crimes in the ethics of the Slave Power the most heinous — and against other modes of attacking slave property, the penalty of death was denounced no less than forty-eight different times.

Such was the mild and liberal spirit of the Leavenworth Constitution. Once promulgated, it became necessary to carry it into effect ; and the means adopted for this purpose were in keeping with all which had gone before. The country was given over to be dealt with by the invaders at their pleasure. [162] Gangs of these armed ruffians, making [231] no pretence of being settlers, having no other means of support than pillage, patrolled the country, "preserving," so it was phrased in Congress, "law and order." The Federal functionaries, meanwhile, looked on in silence, contenting themselves with ratifying the Constitution which had been [232] passed ; while the Federal troops, by abstaining from all interference with the apostles of "order," and, when necessary, by overawing the disaffected, proved useful allies of the movement.

By such means the Slave Power succeeded in establishing itself in Kansas ; but its reign was brief. [233] The atrocities it had committed roused a spirit for which the South was not prepared. The settlers, finding themselves betrayed by the government which should have protected them, rose in arms. The injuries to which they had been exposed only fixed them in the resolution to defend the country [234] which was rightly theirs ; and the story of their wrongs, being carried to the North, excited there a feeling which brought nocking to their assistance crowds of freemen. The efforts of the Slave party though violent, were fitful ; those of the Free settlers were resolute and sustained. After a desultory civil war, the former was utterly defeated, the pro-slavery constitution was overthrown, and a free legislature and free institutions were established.

Such was the result of the experiment of "squatter sovereignty" in the Territories. After a long career of success, the South had at length been forced to give way, and to abandon a design which it had deliberately formed. But the defeat in Kansas was not an ordinary reverse. It could be attributed neither to remissness nor to fortune. The South had brought into action all its available strength, and the contest had been fought under conditions which it had itself prescribed. It had selected its own ground ; it had taken its opponents by surprise ; it had not hesitated to employ every means, legal and illegal, in the prosecution of its end ; in all its measures it had been powerfully sustained by the central government ; and yet, with all these advantages, it had been utterly defeated. The experiment was absolutely decisive ; and it was henceforth certain that, with the resources at present at the disposal of the two parties, slaveholders [235] were no match in the work of colonization for the freemen of the North.

This was a serious result for a community for which territorial expansion was a necessity of prosperous existence. But the crisis assumed a still graver aspect from the movements of political parties to which the events in Kansas led. These events brought home to the Northern people with irresistible force the real aims and character of the power to whose domination it had submitted. It was not simply that the South in Kansas sought to extend the area of slavery — this was a familiar fact ; it was that in prosecuting this object it had shown itself prepared to perpetrate any atrocity, any perfidy ; it was that, in promoting its ambitious schemes, it had turned with utter unscrupulousness those powers of government, with which it had been entrusted for the general good, to the purpose of crushing the liberties and taking away the lives of those who dared to thwart it. A feeling of profound indignation, mingled with alarm, pervaded the people of the Free States. It was felt that the time had come when all who were not content to yield themselves up to the tender mercies of this unscrupulous and wicked Power should take measures for their safety. A strong reaction set in, and the earliest fruit of the reaction was the formation of the Republican party.

[236]

The policy of this party was first given to the world by a manifesto issued in the summer of 1856. The Republican party, it was declared, had no purpose to interfere with slavery in the states where it was already established. Within those limits it had been recognized by the Constitution, and to transcend constitutional bounds was no part of the Republican programme. But it was denied that the authority of Congress, or of any other power in the Union, so long as the present Constitution was maintained, could give legal existence to slavery in any Territory of the United States. The fundamental principle of the party was thus the non-extension of slavery. Taking its stand on this ground, it invited the co-operation of all who were opposed to the dominion of the Slave Power, asking them to lay aside past political differences and divisions, and by one grand effort to rescue the country from the rule of the common foe. [163]

This was in the summer of 1856. In the autumn of the same year the Presidential election gave occasion for the first trial of strength between the new party and its opponents. The contest occurred within a few months from the time when the first idea of a party on the basis indicated had been formed, and before its leaders had had time to [237] complete its organization. As might have been expected, it was defeated, but under circumstances which inspired the strongest hope of ultimate victory. "The Republicans," said the central association at Washington, addressing the country after the event of the election, "wherever able to present clearly to the public the real issues of the canvass — slavery restriction, or slavery extension — have carried the people with them by unprecedented majorities, almost breaking up in some States the organization of their adversaries … Under circumstances so adverse, they have triumphed in eleven, if not twelve of the Free States, pre-eminent for enterprise and general intelligence, and containing one half of the whole population of the country … "We know," continued this body, "the ambition, the necessities, the schemes of the Slave Power. The policy of extension, aggrandisement, and universal empire is the law of its being, not an accident — is settled, not fluctuating. Covert or open, moderate or extreme, according to circumstances, it never changes in spirit or aim … The true course of the Republican party is to organize promptly, boldly, and honestly upon their own principles, and, avoiding coalitions with other parties, appeal directly to the masses of all parties to ignore all organizations and issues which would divert the public mind from the one danger that [238] now threatens the honour and interests of the country, and the stability of the Union."

The long ascendancy of the Slave Power in the Union was thus at length seriously threatened, and on its ascendancy depended its existence as a Power. The leaders of the South were not slow to appreciate the critical nature of their position. With a boldness and practical sense characteristic of men long and successfully conversant with the affairs of government, they looked the danger in the face, and, perceiving that the emergency was one in which ordinary expedients would be unavailing, they resolved upon a policy of "Thorough," and, without hesitation or compunction, advanced straight to their object.

The real cause of the defeat of the South in the Kansas struggle it was not difficult to discover. It lay in the want of a population adapted to the purpose in hand — slavery colonization. The South had conquered the ground, but, owing to the insufficiency of its slave force, it had been unable to hold it, and the result was its defeat. The remedy, therefore, was plain. It would be necessary to increase the slave force of the South in such a manner as to put it on a par in point of disposable population with its Northern rival, and, meantime, pending the accomplishment of this result, to find means to maintain a footing in the Territories in [239] spite of the legislation of the freesoilers. Such was the problem proposed to the South. Nothing short of this would enable the Slave Power to keep open the Territories for its future expansion, and to retain its hold on the Federal Government. Nothing short of this would give it predominance in the Union. There was need, therefore, of "Thorough." It resolved to give effect to this policy in all its fulness, or, failing this, to dissolve the Union.

With a view to the first point — the augmentation of the supply of slave labour — the obvious, and the only adequate, expedient was the re-opening of the African slave trade. That trade had been prohibited by an act of Congress in 1808, and the prohibition had, up to the present time, been acquiesced in by all parties. But, like every other enactment which stood in the way of the freest development of slavery, this prohibition was now discovered to be 'unconstitutional.' Congress had, it seemed, exceeded its proper powers in passing the act. It was, accordingly, determined that an agitation should forthwith be set on foot for its repeal.

The idea of re-opening the African slave trade, like most of those ideas which have been born of pro-slavery fanaticism, had its origin in South Carolina. It was first seriously mooted in 1853 ; [164] but [240] so rapid was the growth of public sentiment in its favour that within two years the subject was taken up by several grand juries and recommended by them to the consideration of the state legislature. In 1856 the seizure of a slaver led to some resolutions being brought forward in Congress, of which the object was to embarrass the government in the execution of the law ; and, in the discussions which then took place, Southern members did not shrink from expressing opinions, not only against the constitutionality of the Federal prohibition, but in favour of the morality of the trade. [165] The public mind was thus ripe for the announcement of the new policy when Governor Adams of South Carolina, in his address on opening the session of 1857, brought the matter formally before the legislature of his state. The obnoxious prohibition was denounced in vehement terms. It was the fruit of "a diseased sentimentality," of a "canting philanthropy." It was, moreover, a violation of the Constitution, [241] and it interfered with the essential interests of the South. By the closing of the African slave trade the equilibrium between North and South had been destroyed, and this equilibrium could only be restored in one way — by the re-opening of that trade. Let this once be accomplished — let the South have free access to the only labour market which is suited to her wants — and she has no rival whom she need fear.

The key-note having been struck, the burden of the strain was taken up by other speakers, and the usual machinery of agitation was put in motion through the South. The Southern press freely discussed the scheme. [166] It was brought before the [242] annual conventions for the consideration of Southern affairs, and received the energetic support of the leaders of the extreme Southern Party. [167] At one of these conventions held at Vicksburg, Mississippi, in May, 1859, a vote in favour of the re-opening of the trade was passed by a large majority ; and this was followed up by the formation of an "African Labour Supply Association," of which Mr. De Bow, the editor of the leading Southern review, was the president. In Alabama, a "League of United Southerners" issued a manifesto in which the Federal [243] prohibition of the foreign slave trade is denounced as an unworthy concession to the demands of Northern fanaticism, and which insists on "the necessity of sustaining slavery, not only where its existence is put directly in issue, but where it is remotely concerned." In Arkansas and Louisiana the subject was brought before the state legislatures. A motion brought forward in the Senate of the former state, condemnatory of the agitation for the revival of the African slave trade, was defeated by a majority of twenty-two. In the latter a bill [244] embodying the views of the advocates of the trade was passed successfully through the Lower House, and only by a narrow majority lost in the Senate. In Georgia the executive committee of an agricultural society offered "a premium of twenty-five dollars for the best specimen of a live African imported, within the last twelve months, to be exhibited at the next meeting of the society." Nor was the principle of competition confined to the show-yard. Southern notions would have been shocked if so solemn a work had missed the benediction of the church. Accordingly, it was proposed in the True Southern, a Mississippi paper, to stimulate the zeal of the pulpit by founding a prize for the best sermon in favour of free trade in human flesh.

Meanwhile those who were immediately interested in the question had taken the law into their own hands, and the trade in slaves with Africa was actually commenced.Throughout the years 1859 and 1860 fleets of slavers arrived at Southern ports, and, with little interference from the Federal Government, [168] succeeded in landing their [245] cargoes. [169] The traffic was carried on with scarcely an attempt at concealment. Announcements of the arrival of cargoes of Africans, and advertisements of their sale, appeared openly in the Southern papers ; [170] and depots of newly imported "savages" were established in the principal towns of the South. "I have had ample evidences of the fact," said Mr. Underwood, a gentleman of known respectability, in a letter to the New York Tribune, "that the re-opening of the African slave trade is already a thing commenced, and the traffic is brisk and rapidly increasing. In fact, the most vital question of the day is, not the opening of the trade, but its suppression. The arrival of cargoes of negroes, fresh from Africa, in our Southern ports is an event of frequent occurrence." [171]

One-half of the policy of "Thorough" was thus fairly inaugurated. But the process of augmenting a population is slow ; and, even on the supposition that the Federal prohibition of the external slave trade were removed, some years would elapse before [246] the South could hope to renew, with any prospect of success, the colonization struggle with the freesoilers. During the interval the movements of the North must by some means be held in check ; the Territories must be kept open. It was necessary, therefore, to devise a principle of policy on which the party could act together with a view to this end : and for this purpose the South, according to its custom in similar emergencies, had recourse to the Constitution of the United States. True, the whole tenor of the Constitution ran in an opposite direction. But the leaders of the party did not despair. Though they might not find their favourite principle, totidem verbis, in the Constitution, nor yet, perhaps, totidem syllabis, "they dared engage," like the book-learned brother in a like difficulty, "they should make it out tertio modo, or totidem literis." [172]

It was beyond question that the Constitution had recognized the right of property in human beings. This could not be denied, and this was a sufficient basis for the policy of the South. The recognition, it is true, was partial and local, so admittedly so, that, even under the rule of the Slave party, the whole course of law and government had proceeded upon this assumption. The latest enactment, for example, bearing upon the question was the Kansas and Nebraska bill. This measure had been brought [247] forward by a Democratic member acting in concert with the whole South, and had been carried against a vehement Northern opposition. Yet even this measure did not assume an equality between slavery and freedom under the Constitution ; for, while it left it open to the inhabitants of a Territory to prohibit slave labour therein, it permitted no corresponding prohibition to be directed against free labour ; while it refused to recognize property in slaves under certain circumstances, and left such property unprotected by law, it contemplated no occasion on which other kinds of property should not receive recognition and protection. The very expression "peculiar institution" showed the light in which slavery was popularly regarded. But the Slave party had now resolved neither to see nor to admit any of these qualifying considerations. It took its stand on the principle that the Constitution recognized the right of property in man ; and, refusing to acknowledge anything which did not harmonize with this, it reasoned with ruthless consistency to the conclusion that Congress, which was the organ of the Constitution, was bound to protect this property in whatever part of the Union it might be found. The doctrine of "squatter sovereignty," which left it open to the inhabitants of a district to decide for or against slavery — albeit a doctrine fabricated to order, with a view to meet the special [248] exigencies of the Slave Power — was therefore denounced as no less unconstitutional than the Missouri Compromise, as no less dangerous than the Wilmot Proviso. It was not for the people of a Territory to say what property was to be protected, and what to be left without protection ; but it was for Congress, to which it belonged to give effect to the Constitution over the whole Union, to protect all property without distinction, whatever might be its nature, and in whatever part of the Union it might be placed — whether consisting of human or of other chattels, whether existing in the States or in the Territories, in the Slave States or in the Free.

Such was the daring doctrine [173] advanced by the leaders of the South in the critical position of their affairs at which they had now arrived. To make good their ground, they had need of two things; first, a judicial decision by the highest Federal authority in their favour ; and secondly, a government at Washington prepared to supply the necessary administrative machinery for giving full effect to this decision. The Supreme Court of the United States is the tribunal of ultimate appeal in constitutional questions. This court had for a long series of years [249] been composed of the most eminent lawyers of the Republic, and had maintained a high character for learning and wisdom, as well as for the spirit of enlightened impartiality with which it discharged its high functions. But this court was now destined to suffer from the same causes which had affected injuriously so many other institutions of the Union. The judges of the Federal courts were appointed by the President and approved by the Senate. In the Senate the Slave party was predominant, and it had hitherto been able to nominate the President. It had, therefore, the appointments to the national judicatory in its own hands ; and for some years — foreseeing that in the controversies which were pending it would be of importance to have the judicial bench on its side — it had been silently shaping to its purpose this great organ of the nation's power. With such success had the process been carried on, that in 1855, although the North had always furnished by far the greatest share of legal talent and learning to the bar of the Union, out of the nine judges who constituted the Supreme Court of the United States, five were Southern men and slaveholders, and the rest, though not natives of the South, were known to be in their sympathies strongly Southern. The tribunal of ultimate appeal in the Union was thus brought to a condition which commended it to the confidence of the "thorough" [250] politicians, [174] and before the court so constituted a case was submitted for judgment, involving the principle which it was desired to establish. This was the celebrated Dred Scott case. The facts of it are sufficiently simple. A slave of the name of Dred Scott had been carried by his master from Missouri, his native state, first to Illinois, a free state, and subsequently to the United States territory north of Missouri, which, under the Missouri Compromise, was free territory. On being brought back to Missouri, the slave claimed his freedom on the ground that his removal by his master to a free state and territory had emancipated him ; and that, once free, [251] he could not be enslaved by being brought again into a slave state. This demand was strictly in accordance with the prevailing course of decisions over the whole South up to that time ; and was thus, in conformity with precedent, conceded by the state court of Missouri, before which it was in the first instance brought. But the defendant appealed against this decision, and the case came on under a writ of error first before the Supreme Court of the State, and ultimately, having in the interval passed through one of the circuit Federal courts, before the Supreme Court of the Union. The result was the reversal by a majority of the Supreme Court of the judgment of the court below. In announcing the decision, Chief Justice Taney, who delivered judgment, laid down two principles which went the full length of the views of the Slave party. He declared, first, that in contemplation of law there was no difference between a slave and any other kind of property ; and secondly, that all American citizens might settle with their property in any part of the Union in which they pleased.

Such was the momentous decision in the Dred Scott case. Its effect was to reverse the fundamental assumption upon which up to that time society in the Union had been based ; and, whereas formerly freedom had been regarded as the rule and slavery the exception, to make slavery in future the [252] rule of the Constitution. According to the law, as expounded by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, it was now competent to a slaveholder to carry his slaves not merely into any portion of the Territories, but, if it pleased him, into any of the Free States, to establish himself with his slave retinue in Ohio or Massachusetts, in Pennsylvania or New York, and to hold his slaves in bondage there, the regulations of Congress or the laws of the particular state to the contrary notwithstanding. The Union, if this doctrine were to be accepted, was henceforth a single slaveholding domain, in every part of which property in human beings was equally sacred. So sweeping were the consequences involved in the Dred Scott decision. Reading that decision in the light of subsequent events, we cannot but admire the sagacious foresight of Tocqueville : — "The President who exercises a limited power may err without causing great mischief in the state. Congress may decide amiss without destroying the Union, because the electoral body in which Congress originates may cause it to retract its decision by changing its members. But if the Supreme Court is ever composed of imprudent men or bad citizens, the Union may be plunged into anarchy or civil war."

The Slave Power had thus accomplished its first object. The Constitution had been turned against [253] itself, and, by an ingenious application of the "totidem literis" principle of interpretation, the right to extend slavery over the whole area of the Union was declared by the highest tribunal in the Republic to be good in constitutional law. But it was further necessary to give practical effect to this decision ; and this could only be accomplished through a government at Washington favourable to the principle it embodied. It was therefore resolved that, in the approaching Presidential election, the party of the South should be reconstructed on the basis of this principle in its application to the Territories ; (for it was thought prudent for the present to abstain from extending the new doctrine to the Free States). This policy was, however, in the last degree hazardous. The South had hitherto carried its measures through an alliance with the Democratic party of the North ; but this party was now led by Mr. Douglas, and Mr. Douglas was the author of the Kansas and Nebraska bill, the repeal of which was for the moment the main object of the South. Mr. Douglas was, therefore, plainly told that he must recant his former principles — principles which, at the cost of much loss of credit among his Northern friends, he had devised expressly for the benefit of the Slave Power — and that he must make up his mind to uphold slavery in the Territories in spite of anti-slavery decisions by the "squatter sovereignty," [254] or forfeit the support of the South. Now this was a length to which Mr. Douglas and the section which he led — highly as they prized the Southern alliance, and indulgently and perhaps approvingly as they regarded the institution of slavery — were not prepared to go. [175] Mr. Douglas was, therefore, cast aside. The combined phalanx which had so long ruled the Union was broken in two, and the Slave Power stood alone. This position of affairs could only lead to one result — that which actually occurred — the triumph by a large majority of the [255] Republican party. The South having thus failed to make good the one alternative of its 'thorough' policy, at once accepted the other ; and the dissolution of the Union was proclaimed.

Such has been the career of aggression pursued by the Slave Power in North America for the last fifty years. It forms, as it seems to me, one of the most striking and alarming episodes in modern history, and furnishes a remarkable example of what a small body of men may effect against the most vital interests of human society, when, thoroughly understanding their position and its requirements, they devote themselves deliberately, resolutely, and unscrupulously to the accomplishment of their ends. It has indeed been contended that "the action of the South on this subject [the extension of slavery], though in appearance aggressive, has in reality been in self-defence, as a means of maintaining its political status against the growth of the North." [176] And in one sense this is true, though by no means in the sense in which the author of this argument would have us believe it. What is suggested is, that the political ascendancy of the South has been necessary to prevent its being sacrificed to the selfish ends of the Northern majority ; and that it has been with a view to this object — security against Northern rapacity — and not at all on its own account, that [256] the extension of slavery has been sought. The policy of slavery extension by the South is thus represented as but a means to an end — that end being the legitimate development of its own resources. Such is the theory. One more strikingly at variance with the most conspicuous facts of the case it would perhaps be difficult to imagine. The extension of slavery sought as a means to an end ! and that end free trade, fiscal equality, and the internal development of the Southern States ! Why, if these were the real objects of the South, where was the need, and what was the meaning, of secession ? They were all secured to it by the Cincinnati platform ; they had all been advocated by Mr. Douglas. Why then reject the Democratic manifesto and the Democratic candidate, and break with the Democratic party — if this was all that was sought ? Were state rights threatened by the Cincinnati platform ? Was Mr. Douglas a protectionist ? Yet if the South had not broken with this party — a party whose motto was state rights and free trade, a party which regarded slavery with something more than indulgence— the Democratic organization might never have been shaken, and the South might still have been in possession of the Federal Government. "But why discuss on probable evidence notorious facts? The world knows what the question between the North and South has been for many years, and [257] still is. Slavery alone was thought of, alone talked of. Slavery was battled for and against, on the floor of Congress and in the plains of Kansas ; on the slavery question exclusively was the party constituted which now rules the United States ; on slavery Fremont was rejected, on slavery Lincoln was elected ; the South separated on slavery, and proclaimed slavery as the one cause of separation." [177]

But, though not true in the sense suggested by the English champions of the Southern cause, there is a sense in which it is strictly true that the aggressions of the Slave Power have been defensive movements. This is indeed the essence of the case which I have endeavoured to establish. For I have endeavoured to show that, while the economic necessities of the South require a constant extension of the area of its dominion, and while its moral necessities require no less urgently a field for its political ambition, it is yet, from the peculiarity of its social structure, incapable of amalgamating with societies of a different type, and has no objects which it can pursue with them in common ; and that, consequently, it can only attain its ends at their expense. It must advance ; it cannot mix with free societies ; and, where these meet it in the same field, it must push them from its path. In this sense it must be allowed that the aggressive movements of the South [258] have been but efforts prompted by the instincts of self-defence ; but whether the fact, when thus understood, is likely to help the argument of those who employ it, it is for them to consider.It is suggested, indeed, that this necessity of aggression rises from the relative inferiority of the South in wealth and numbers — that its encroachments are but "means of maintaining its political status against the growth of the North."But in all political aggregates particular members or groups of members must be inferior to other members or groups, or to the rest combined, and if this were a reason for political separation, there could be no such thing as political union.The Southern States are not more inferior in wealth and numbers to the Northern than is Ireland to Great Britain, or Scotland to England and Ireland ; yet neither Ireland nor Scotland is compelled in self-defence to pursue towards the more powerful section of the unity to which they severally belong a policy of aggression. Why should it be different with the Southern States of the Union ? Let the champions of the South address themselves to this problem, and if they can solve it without being brought at last to slavery as the ultimate cause of all other dissensions — the one incompatibility in the case — they will show more ingenuity than they have ever yet displayed. I venture to suggest that solution [259] which has been foreshadowed by Tocqueville, and which is at once the most obvious and the most profound. The South has been compelled to pursue a policy of aggression towards the North, not because it is less rich or less populous, but because it is different, and all the differences which divide North and South have originated in slavery — in an institution which prevents the growth of interests, ideas, and aims in which free societies can share, and which can prosper only by perpetually encroaching on their sphere. [178]

[263]

CHAPTER VIII. THE DESIGNS OF THE SLAVE POWER.↩

We have traced in the foregoing chapter the career of the Slave Power. In the present it is proposed to consider its probable designs. This, indeed, might well seem to be a superfluous inquiry ; since, if we have correctly appreciated the past history of that Power, and the motives which have carried it to its present perilous attempt, we shall not easily err as to the objects which it would pursue in the event of that attempt being successful. Combinations of men do not in a moment change their character and aims ; of all combinations aristocracies are the most persistent in their plans ; and of all aristocracies an aristocracy of slaveholders is that the range of whose ideas is most limited, and whose career, therefore, is least susceptible of sudden deviation from the path which it has long followed.

Nevertheless, it will not be expedient to take for granted what would seem to be in such little need of proof ; for there are those who tell us that this party, whose whole history has been a record of successful aggression and of pretensions rising with [262] each success, has engaged in this last grand effort from motives the reverse of those which have hitherto notoriously inspired it ; and who would have us believe that the Slave Power, which in the space of half a century has pushed its boundary from the foot of the Alleghanies to the borders of New Mexico, and which, from the position of an exceptional principle claiming a local toleration, has reached the audacity of aspiring to embrace the whole commonwealth in its domain — that this Power has suddenly changed its nature, and, in now seeking to secede from the Union, aims at nothing more than simple independence — the privilege of being allowed to work out its own destiny in its own way.

This assumption, indeed, however paradoxical to , those who are familiar with the exploits of the Southern party, underlies most of the speculation which has been current in this country upon the probable consequences of a severance of the Union, and is that which has procured for the cause of secession the degree of countenance which it has enjoyed. It will therefore be desirable to consider how far the basis of the assumption is warranted — how far the altered position of the South — supposing it to make good its ground in the present struggle— is calculated to affect the character which it has hitherto sustained, and to convert an unscrupulous [263] and ambitious faction into the moderate rulers of an inoffensive state.

And here we must advert to principles already established. We have seen the causes which have made the Slave Power what it is : in its new position which of these causes will cease to operate ? Slavery is to remain the "corner stone" of the republic more firmly set than ever. The economic and moral attributes of the South will therefore continue to be such as slavery must make them. Cultivation will be carried on according to the old methods : the old process of exhaustion must, therefore, go on ; and thus the necessity for fresh soils will be not less urgent under the new régime than under the old. The stigma which slavery casts on industry will still remain : there will, therefore, still be an idle and vagabond class of "mean whites ;" and, since cultivation must still be contracted to the narrow area which is rich enough to support slave labour, there will, as now, be the wilderness to shelter them. There they must continue to drag out existence, lawless, restless, incapable of improvement, eager as ever for filibustering raids on peaceful neighbours. Lastly, the moral incidents of slavery must remain such as we have traced them. The lust of power will still be generated by the associations and habits of domestic tyranny, and the ambition of slaveholders will still connect itself with that which is [264 ] the foundation of their social life, and offers to them their only means of emerging from obscurity. In a word, all those fundamental influences springing from the deepest roots of slave society, which have concurred to mould the character and determine the career of the Slave Power while in connexion with the Union, will, after that connexion has been dissolved, continue to operate with unabated energy.

Nor does this adequately represent the case. While the same motives to ambition will remain, the appetite for power will be still further stimulated by the exigencies of its new position. Connected with the North, the Slave Power was sustained by the prestige of a great confederation. Through the medium of its government it was brought into harmonious relations with free countries ; under the aegis of its protection it enjoyed almost complete immunity from foreign criticism. It so happened, too, that, during the chief period of its connexion with the Union, the South contrived to hold the reins of government in its own hands, and was thus enabled in the prosecution of its designs to wield a power far greater than its own, and to compass ends which, in the absence of such support, could not have failed to call up in other countries effectual opposition. But, separated from the North it will neither command the same resources nor enjoy among foreign powers the same consideration. [265] Its position will be one of absolute isolation from the whole civilized world : it will be compelled to encounter without mitigation the concentrated reprobation of all free society. "It were madness now," says one of the ablest of Southern writers, "to blink the question. We are entering at last upon a daring innovation upon the social constitutions of the world. We are erecting a nationality upon a union of races, where other nations have but one. We cannot dodge the issue ; we cannot disguise the issue ; we cannot safely change our front in the face of a vigilant adversary. Every attempt to do so, every refusal to assist ourselves, every intellectual or political evasion, is a point against us. We may postpone the crisis by disguises, but the Slave Republic must forego its nature and its destiny, or it must meet the issue." [179] Such a position will only be permanently tenable on one condition — that of vastly augmented power. The South will not be slow to discover this ; and thus, by more powerful inducements than it has yet experienced, the Slave [266] Power will be precipitated upon a new career of aggression.

These considerations apply to every conceivable hypothesis as to the terms on which the independence of the Southern Confederacy may be accomplished. But, in order to bring out more distinctly the views which are likely to govern this body as an independent power, it will be convenient to consider the case on three distinct suppositions.

We may suppose, first, that the independence of the Slave Republic is recognized on the terms of permanently limiting its area to those portions of the South which are already definitely settled under slavery.

Or, secondly, we may suppose its independence to be recognized on the condition of its being restricted for the present to the above limits, but with liberty of colonising, and, after colonization, of annexing the unsettled districts on equal terms with the North — the question of free or slave institutions being left to be determined by some principle analogous to "squatter sovereignty."

Thirdly, we may suppose an equal division of the unsettled portions of the public domain between the contending parties, the South taking that portion which lies westward of its own boundary, including the Indian Territory and New Mexico.

Taking the first of these suppositions — the recognition [267] of the independence of the South on the terms of being permanently confined within the limits of country already settled under slavery — this would involve a considerable curtailment of the present area of the Slave States. Extensive districts included in this area cannot in any correct sense be said to be settled at all ; and others are settled under freedom. The latter observation applies to large portions of Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri, which would, therefore, on the hypothesis we are at present considering, pass to the side of the North ; the former applies to Texas, and, in a considerable degree, to Arkansas. Thus, Texas, comprising an area of 274,356 square miles— an area greatly larger than that of France — contained in 1850 but 58,161 slaves; and Arkansas, extending over 52,198 square miles — an area larger than that of England — contained but 47,100 slaves. [180] Districts in which the slaves are not more numerous than this — albeit they may have been enrolled as slave states to meet the political exigencies of the Slave Power — cannot be said to have been yet appropriated by slavery. The task of [268] their colonization is yet to be performed ; and on the supposition, therefore, that the Slave Power were restricted within the country which it has really settled, these districts with the others would pass from its grasp. Now, what future would lie before the Slave Power in the event of its being shut up within these limits ? It seems to me we can have little difficulty in forecasting its destiny. If there be any truth in the best established conclusions, independence upon such terms could only be the prelude to an early overthrow of the present social and political fabric of the South. Once confine the operations of slavery to the tracts which it already occupies, and the ultimate extinction of the system becomes as certain as the ultimate surrender of the garrison of a beleaguered town which is absolutely cut off from relief. Emancipation would be gradually but surely forced upon slaveholders by irresistible causes ; and scope would at length be given for the resuscitation of society upon wholesome principles. Each year would bring, on the one hand, an increase of the slave population, and on the other — as the soil [269] deteriorated under the thriftless methods of slave culture — a diminished area of land suitable for its employment ; and the process would continue till, in the words of Judge Warner, "both master and slave would be starved out." The process of decay would commence in the older states. There would be a fall in the price of slaves : breeding would no longer be profitable; and thus the single prop which has for fifty years supported slavery in those states would be at once withdrawn. [181] For a time the working states might not be losers, and might even be gainers by the change. The price of labour might fall more rapidly than their lands would deteriorate. But it would be for a time only. The decreasing productiveness of the slave's exertions would at length reach the point at which the returns from them Would not equal the cost of his support, and then the progress towards the catastrophe would be rapid. The fate of the older states would overtake every portion of the slave domain ; and the whole body of slaveholders would be compelled to face the fearful problem of doing justice to four million victims of their own and their ancestors' wrong. It is not to be supposed, however, that the solution would be [270] postponed to the last moment. So soon as the end came distinctly into view, provision would doubtless be made to meet the inevitable change ; and the gradualness of the process would allow time for the action of palliative influences. Such, it seems to me, would be the result of independence on the terms involved in the first hypothesis. In such terms, however, we may be well assured, the Southern leaders, fully understanding as they do their own case, would only acquiesce after complete subjugation.

But, secondly, we may assume, as the condition of Southern independence, that the unsettled portions of the public domain (including under this expression, besides the Territories technically so called, the greater part of Arkansas and nearly the whole of Texas) should be open for slave colonization, while a like liberty should be accorded for free settlement ; and we have now to consider what would be the effect of its position, as thus determined, on the fortunes of the Slave Power. Now I think it is plain that, in view of the competition which such a determination of the question would inevitably engender, the necessity would at once be forced upon the South of maintaining a footing in the unsettled districts at whatever cost. The attractions offered by the fertile soils and fine river systems of Texas and Arkansas could not fail to draw from the [271] North, on the one hand, and from California, on the other, crowds of free settlers, who would quickly establish themselves upon the most eligible sites. If the South did not proceed with equal energy, it would find itself forestalled at every point. A cordon of free states would in no long time be drawn around its border, barring its advance towards the rich lands of Mexico, and throwing it back upon its exhausted fields. Is it likely that the Slave Power would quietly contemplate this consummation, — that it would look forward to what Mr. Spence aptly calls "the painful process of strangulation," without making an effort to break the bands which were gradually but surely closing around it ? The supposition is incredible. Freedom and slavery would therefore once more renew their race in the colonization of the Territories. And on what grounds could the South hope for success in such a contest ? The mortifying lesson taught in Kansas has not been forgotten. The South knows well that a renewal of the contest under conditions which then brought signal defeat must inevitably lead to a like result. But the conditions of the new trial of strength would, in one respect at least, be far less favourable for the Southern cause than those which proved disastrous in Kansas. The Slave Power would no longer find an accomplice enthroned at Washington. What happened in Kansas, therefore, [272] would of necessity be repeated in Texas and New Mexico ; the South would be out-colonized by its rival, and the goal would appear in no distant view. There would be but one escape from this fate — such a rapid increase of its disposable slave population as would supply the defect from which it suffered in its former attempts ; and this increase could only be accomplished in one way — by a revival of the African slave trade. The revival of this trade would, accordingly, in the event we are considering, become a vital question for the South. Whether the measure would really prove effectual for the purpose designed is a question which I do not think we have sufficient data to resolve ; but that such would be the case is undoubtedly the opinion of the Southern leaders. "We can divide Texas into five slave states," says the Vice-president of the Southern Confederation, "and get Chihuahua and Sonora, if we have the slave population ; but unless the number of the African stock be increased we have not the population, and might as well abandon the race with our brethren of the North in the colonization of the Territories. Slave states cannot be made without Africans." "Take off," says Mr. Gaulden of Georgia, "the ruthless restrictions which cut off the supply of slaves from foreign lands . . take off the restrictions against the African slave trade, and we should then want no protection, and I would be willing to let you have [273] as much squatter sovereignty as you wish. Give us an equal chance, and I tell you the institution of slavery will take care of itself." From all this it seems to follow — assuming a separation on the terms of an open field for free and slave colonization over the still unsettled districts — that the only chance of permanently establishing the Southern Republic on that "corner stone" which its builders have chosen, would lie in re-opening the African slave trade, and rapidly increasing the supply of slaves ; and that the Southern leaders would, in the contingency supposed, at once adopt this expedient I cannot for a moment doubt. As we have seen in a former chapter, the trade had actually been commenced on an extensive scale before the breaking out of the civil war ; and, with vastly more urgent reasons for reviving; it, while there would be entire freedom from the restraints of Federal legislation, it is difficult to believe that there would be any hesitation about recurring to the same course.

But there is yet another condition under which the independence of the South may be regarded. We may suppose that the Union is dissolved on the terms of an equal division of the unsettled districts between the contending parties. This arrangement would probably satisfy the utmost aspirations of the Southern party. It would probably also — so far as any distinct ideas on the subject exist — fall in with [274 ] the conception of an independent South which for the most part rises before those who in this country take the Southern side, including, it may be observed, some whose sincerity in disclaiming all sympathy with slavery it is impossible to doubt. It becomes, therefore, of importance that the consequences involved in this mode of establishing Southern independence be carefully examined.

The argument by which the support of the Southern cause, understood as I have just stated it, is reconciled with the avowal of anti-slavery opinions, is one with the basis of which the reader is now familiar. It is this, that under the proposed arrangement the limits of slavery would be fixed ; and that, this point being attained, the downfall of the system would in due time follow. "The Southern Confederacy, hemmed in between two free and jealous neighbours [the northern states and mexico], will henceforth see its boundaries, and comprehend and accommodate itself to its future conditions of national existence. The moment slavery is confined definitively within its present limits, according to the best opinions, its character becomes modified and its doom is sealed, though the execution of the sentence may seem to be relegated to a very distant day." [182]

This theory, it will be remarked, involves a [275] suspicious paradox. It supposes that the most complete success which the South can hope for in the present war would effectually defeat the precise object for which the South has engaged in war. It supposes that Englishmen know more of the real necessities of slavery than the men whose lives have been spent in working the system, and who have now staked them on an attempt to establish it upon firm foundations. Before accepting so improbable a doctrine, it will be worth considering whether there may not be more to be said for the wisdom of Mr. Jefferson Davis and his friends, than those would have us think who in this country favour their cause.

It seems difficult to believe that those who speculate on the prospects of slavery in the manner of the writer from whom I have quoted, have attended to the geographical conditions under which, in the case supposed, the institution would be placed. The South is described as "hemmed in" between Mexico and the North. The expression implies ideas of magnitude truly American ; for the Power thus "hemmed in" would be master of a space as large as all Europe west of the Vistula, and would have, at its disposal a region, still unsettled and available for slave colonization, little less extensive than the whole area of the present Slave States. [183] Under an [276] arrangement which professes to provide for the extinction of slavery a new field would be thus secured for its extension, equal to that which now employs 4,000,000 slaves.

But it will perhaps be said that, whatever might be the immediate effects of Southern independence established upon these terms, still, the bounds of slavery being absolutely fixed, provision would be made for its ultimate extinction. Those opponents of slavery who find comfort in this view of the case must possess more far-reaching sympathies than I can pretend to. It may be worth their while, however, to consider whether even their longanimity may not in the end be balked of its reward. For, ere the time would arrive when the Slave Power, having occupied the vast regions thus secured for it, would begin to feel the restraints of its spacious prison, at least a quarter of a century would have elapsed, and at least two million slaves would be added to the present number. With this increase in the area of its dominion, and in the number of its slave population, and with the time thus allowed it for consolidating its strength, and maturing its [277] plans, it cannot be doubted that the power of the South would have become indefinitely more formidable than it has ever yet shown itself. And as little, I think, can it be doubted that its audacity would have grown with its strength ; for it would now, by actual trial, have proved its prowess against the only antagonist whom it has really to dread, and it would enter on its career of independence amid all the éclat of victory. In the mood of mind produced by the contemplation of its achievements and the sense of its supremacy, is it likely that the South would be content to bridle its ambition, — much less to accept a lot, acquiescence in which would be tantamount to signing its own doom ?

It will be said that the Slave Power, severed from the Union, would find itself on all sides surrounded by watchful and jealous neighbours, whose office it would be to counteract its intrigues and to hold its ambition in check ; and that, in discharging this office, the free communities of America would be sustained by the moral, and, if need were, by the physical, support of the Great Powers of Europe. It cannot be denied that there is much weight in this consideration ; yet its importance may easily be over-rated. The Northern States, once shut out from Mexico and Central America by the vast range of territory which, under this determination of the quarrel, would be alienated from their confederacy, [278] would have little object in staying the progress of the South in that direction. It is, moreover, important to observe that one of the most popular projects among all sections of the Northern people, for some years past, has been the providing of railway communication between the Atlantic and the Pacific States [184] — a project which, so soon as the reestablishment of peace shall allow time for the prosecution of industrial schemes, will doubtless be resumed. [185] Now, this idea once carried into effect, the chief reason with the Northern people for desiring influence in the Gulf of Mexico would be removed. Again, it is not impossible that, before the time should arrive when intervention might be required, the position of affairs among the Northern States might be considerably altered. Although I am quite unable to see the ground for the apprehension now so prevalent, and apparently so influential, in the North, that, a severance of the Union once effected, the process of disintegration would go forward till society should be reduced to its primary [279] elements ; still I think it cannot be doubted that the example would be contagious ; and thus it is no violent supposition, that, as in course of time a difference of external conditions among several groups of the Northern States resulted in the growth of different interests and different modes of regarding political questions, the present would be followed by future secessions, until, in the end, several communities should take the place of the existing Confederation. Now it is obvious to reflect that, were such an order of political relations once established, the Northern States would find, in the clashing interests and mutual jealousies developed among themselves, more tempting matter for diplomatic activity than in counteracting the designs of Southern ambition in a part of the world from which their connexion, alike commercial and political, had been almost wholly cut off.

And still less is European intervention to be relied upon. The Powers of Europe have doubtless strong reasons that Central America should be held by hands which they can trust ; and they would naturally be disposed to offer obstacles to the progress of a Slave Power. But Europe is far removed from the scene of Mexican intrigue ; and an European war, or even a serious complication in European politics, might easily relax their vigilance.. Taking into consideration all the circumstances of the case [280] — the period which would elapse before the new lands could be occupied, a period during which the Slave Power would have time to organize its forces and to study the weakness of its opponents — the chances that in the interval disunion in the North, or complications of policy in Europe, would produce contingencies favourable to its designs — the persistency of aristocracies in pushing schemes on which they have once entered — the eminent examples of this quality which the South has already furnished — the passion, amounting to fanaticism, with which it has long cherished this particular scheme — above all, the absolute necessity under which it would in the end find itself of extending its domain — who, I say, with all these circumstances in view, can feel assured that, once established on the broad basis of an empire reaching from the Potomac to the Rio Grande, the Slave Power would not hold out a serious menace of realizing the vast projects of its ambition; and that the world might not one day be appalled by the spectacle of a great slaveholding confederacy erecting itself in Central America, encircling the Gulf of Mexico, absorbing the West Indies, and finally including under its sway the whole tropical region of the New World ? [186]

[281]

If there be any force in these speculations, it will be seen that Mr. Jefferson Davis and his associates were not so widely mistaken in the selection of their means as has been commonly supposed, and that they may contemplate with considerable complacency [282] the "euthanasia" which has been predicted for their favourite institution. [187] That the establishment of Southern independence upon equal terms will "modify the character" of slavery, I am far from denying. But it is important to determine in what direction the modification will take place ; and, in connexion with this subject, I shall revert to a topic to which I have already more than once referred, but the importance of which deserves a somewhat fuller consideration than has yet been given to it — I mean the possibility of a revival of the African slave trade.

The audacity of this conception and its incongruity with the prevailing modes of thought in Europe, and especially in England, have on this side of the Atlantic caused general incredulity as to the fact that such a project has been really entertained. It seems almost too monstrous that a party claiming admission as an equal member into the community of Christian nations, should deliberately conceive the plan of reviving in the full light of modern civilization a scandal which has long lain under its ban. It is not then strange that the disclaimers by [283] Southern agents of any intention on the part of the South to revive the trade have, for the most part, obtained an easy acceptance in Europe. But those who are thus easily satisfied can scarcely have attended to the prevailing tendencies of Southern politics, or be aware of the steps which, previous to the outbreak of the civil war, had been actually taken in this direction by the party now dominant in the South. Of the strong interest of the Slave Power in the revival of the trade, in the event of its independence being established on any terms which give it a chance of maintaining itself in the Territories, there cannot I think be a doubt. It has been already shown that, on one supposition, the question would become absolutely vital. It would be only a choice between the re-opening of the trade and acquiescence in a condition of things which would be tantamount to early extinction. On the hypothesis last considered, there would not, indeed, be the same vital necessity for the measure ; nevertheless, the temptation to it would be strong. The labour force of the South has long been unequal to the requirements of the planters. Of this the steady rise in the price of slaves during half a century is a sufficient proof. But, with the whole Southern Territory secured for exclusive slave settlement, the insufficiency of the home supply to meet the necessities of the case would be more manifest than ever. [284] With the advance in price breeding would no doubt be stimulated in the older states ; but the process of augmentation by natural increase would be slow, while, on the other hand, the high price of labour would greatly curtail the profits of cultivation. Under these circumstances, it is difficult to believe that the planters of the South would long tolerate an impediment which stood between them and the realization of vast schemes of aggrandisement, [188] more especially when the maintenance of the obstacle could only be justified on grounds of morality which the whole South would reject with disdain. The continued prohibition of the trade would be denounced as an unworthy subserviency to the fanaticism of foreign governments — as (to quote language which has already been employed in this cause) "branding every slaveholder in the land with the mark of guilt and dishonour." [189] Slaveholders would be called upon as before, but in tones rendered more authoritative by the increased prestige which the cause of slavery would have acquired, [285] to remove "the degrading stigma" from "their most essential political institution," and, as the means at once of filling their pockets and clearing their fame, to repeal a law jarring alike with their moral and material susceptibilities. As opposed to these motives, two counter-considerations only can be assigned — the provision in the Montgomery Constitution, [190] prohibiting the African slave trade, and the interests of the breeding states in maintaining the monopoly of the Southern markets. Let us endeavour to appreciate the probable efficacy of these restraining causes.

With regard to the former — the constitutional prohibition against the trade — those who attach the slightest importance to this as a security for the future conduct of the politicians who enacted it, must either be unacquainted with their past history, or must suppose that there is something in an act of wanton rebellion so restorative to the moral faculties as to convert in a moment a band of actual conspirators and life-long intriguers into trustworthy statesmen. The men who drew up this Montgomery Constitution are the men, or the political descendants and associates of the men, who passed [286] and repealed the Missouri Compromise, who accepted and repudiated the Nebraska Bill. These were regarded by the Free States in the light of national compacts ; and they were compacts by which the Southern party — the authors of this Montgomery Constitution — obtained for the time what they desired. The reader of the previous chapter is aware in what manner these compacts were observed. In the case of the Missouri Compromise the bargain was adhered to till the Southern party had appropriated its advantages ; in the case of the Nebraska Bill, till the measure was proved unequal to the task that was required of it. In both cases solemn engagements were set aside the moment they became inconvenient. What is there in the circumstances under which the Montgomery Constitution has been adopted to warrant the supposition that it will be regarded as more sacred than the Missouri Compromise, or than the Nebraska Bill — to lead us to expect that any provision it contains will be adhered to one moment longer than it suits the convenience of the men who have framed it ? The provisional constitution was, in the first instance, passed in secret session. Subsequently, when brought forward in its present form for adoption, the proceedings were open, and among the few debates which occurred, one took place on the clause prohibiting the foreign slave trade. It is instructive to observe the grounds on which the [287] prohibition was attacked and defended. On the one side, it was asked, if such legislation was not incompatible with a constitution which broadly proclaimed the perpetuity and inviolability of slavery. If the legitimacy of the institution was so incontestable that Congress -was to be excluded from the power of ever decreeing its abolition, [191] did it not follow that every means of recruiting the system was equally legitimate ? Why should it be permitted to purchase slaves in Virginia, and forbidden to purchase them in Africa ? The anomaly was the less justifiable as the foreign slave trade confers on the imported negro an advantage to which there is nothing corresponding in the case of the domestic slave trade — it introduces him to Christianity and civilization. Against these arguments of the opponents of the clause, its defenders had nothing better to advance than considerations of temporary expediency. The young republic was not yet sufficiently established to expose itself to the double danger arising from the wounded susceptibilities of European powers, who had made the abolition of the slave trade a point of honour, and from the alienated sympathies of the slave-breeders of Virginia, Kentucky, and Maryland, who would be naturally apprehensive of foreign competition. At this time, [288] it will be remembered, the Border slave states had not yet declared themselves on the question of secession ; and it was a condition absolutely vital to the success of the movement that at least the principal of these states should join the revolution. Without this the whole scheme must inevitably have collapsed. It is, therefore, not strange that the arguments of expediency prevailed. The clause prohibiting the African slave trade was passed, and the task of providing for the enforcement of this prohibition was remitted to Congress. [192] And now let us observe how the Confederate Congress performed the task confided to it. Under the Federal constitution slave trading with foreign countries is piracy, and is punished capitally. The Confederate Congress attenuated the capital crime to a misdemeanor, against which it directed a proportional penalty — confiscation of the. vessel taken flagrante delicto! The chance of capture, to be effected by agents sympathizing with the crime, and, in the rare case where the stolen chattels are actually found in the thief's possession, to be followed by confiscation of the vessel — this was the penalty by which it was proposed — shall we say in irony ? — to balance the [289] temptations of a most lucrative traffic ! But the bitter jest did not end here : there is a further feature in the case which bears still more unmistakably the brand of slave legislation. It was necessary to provide for the disposal of the negroes who should be found on the captured slavers. Under the Federal law they are transferred to Liberia at the expense of the Federal government. How did the Confederate Congress propose to deal with them ? It introduced a clause into its bill which directed that they should be taken to the nearest port and sold for the benefit of the state ! This was the compensation provided by these beneficent legislators for the victims of the inhuman cupidity of their countrymen. It is thus that a Slave Republic legislates against the slave trade ; and it is to the good faith of the men who are the authors of this notable law that Englishmen are asked to trust as a security against the revival of a trade to which their strongest feelings and interests draw them on. [193] But such a law, as it could have [290] deceived no one, must have frustrated the ends for which it was designed. The President, therefore, more prudent than his councillors, met it with his veto, communicating his reasons for this step to Congress in secret session. The question has since been indefinitely adjourned. [194]

The prohibition of the foreign slave trade in the Montgomery Constitution thus stands at present a mere abstract proposition, unaccompanied with any provision for its practical enforcement. Even thus, however, it has not failed to give offence to the more uncompromising spirits in the South ; and already the demand for its repeal has been raised in no faltering tones. "For God's sake," says the Southern Confederacy, a Florida paper, "and the sake of consistency, do not let us form a Union for the express purpose of maintaining and propagating African slavery, and then, as the Southern Congress have done, confess our error by enacting a constitutional provision abolishing the African slave trade. The opening of the trade is a mere question of expediency, to be determined by legislative enactment hereafter, but not by constitutional provision." "Why adopt this measure ?" says Mr. Spratt in a letter addressed to one of the members of the Montgomery Convention, "Is it that Virginia and the other Border states require it ? . . . They have [291] no right to ask that their slaves or any other products should be protected to an unnatural value in the markets of the West. If they persist in regarding the negro but as a thing of trade — a thing which they are too good to use, but only can produce for others' uses — and join the Confederacy, as Pennsylvania or Massachusetts might do, not to support the structure, but to profit by it, it were as well they should not join, and we can find no interest in such association. ... Is it that foreign nations will require it ? As a matter of taste they might perhaps. There is a mode upon the subject of human rights at present, and England, France, and other states that are leaders of the mode, might be pleased to see the South comply with the standard of requirement, and, provided only no serious inconvenience or injury resulted, would be pleased to see the South suppress not only the slave trade but slavery itself. But will our failure to do so make any greater difference in our relations with those states ? Men may assume it if they will, but it argues a pitiable want of intelligence and independence, an abject want of political spirit, to suppose it. . . They will submit to any terms of intercourse with the Slave Republic in consideration of its markets and its products. An increase of slaves will increase the market and supply. They will pocket their philanthropy and profits together. And so [292] solicitude as to the feeling of foreign states upon this subject is gratuitous : and so it is that our suppression of the slave trade is warranted by no necessity to respect the sentiment of foreign states." While such language is openly employed through the South by its most energetic politicians, we may judge of the value of an anti-slave-trade clause, unprovided with any means for its enforcement, in a revolutionary constitution.

But it will perhaps be thought that, although constitutional restraints may be weak, the interests of the Border states, which have been strong enough to procure the prohibition, may be trusted to secure its being permanently maintained. That the Border states have this interest in a pecuniary sense is indeed abundantly evident. But the point to be considered is this : — will the pecuniary interest of the Border states be allowed permanently to prevail against, not merely the equal pecuniary interests of other states in the opposite policy, but against the requirements, in the largest sense, of the whole Slave Republic ? A consideration of the course pursued under analogous circumstances on former occasions will show the extreme improbability of such a supposition.

There is perhaps nothing more remarkable in the past career of the Slave Power than the unanimity with which the whole body of slaveholders have [293] concurred in supporting a given policy, so soon as it was clearly understood that the public interests of slavery prescribed its adoption ; yet with the line of policy which, in view of this necessity, has been actually followed, the interests of the Slave States have been far from being equally identified. The slave-breeding states of Virginia and Kentucky had a very distinct and palpable advantage in opening new ground for slave cultivation across the Mississippi. They thereby created a new market for their slaves, and directly enhanced the value of their principal property. But the slave-working States of Alabama and Mississippi, which were buyers, not sellers, of slaves, which were producers, not consumers, of cotton, had a precisely opposite interest as regards this enterprise. The effect of the policy of territorial extension, in relation to them, was to raise the price of slaves — the productive instrument which they employed ; and, on the other hand, to reduce the price of cotton — the commodity in which they dealt. It at once increased their outlay and diminished their returns. Yet this did not prevent the whole body of Slave States from working steadily together in promoting that policy which the maintenance of the Slave Power, as a political system, demanded. A still more striking instance of the readiness to sacrifice particular interests to the political ascendancy of the body is furnished by the [294] conduct of the South in its dealings with Cuba. The annexation of this island has long been, as all the world knows, a darling project of Southern ambition. The bearing of the acquisition on the general interests of the South is very obvious. It would add to its domain a district of incomparable fertility. It would give it a commanding position in the Gulf of Mexico. It would increase its political weight in the Union. But there is one state in the South which could not fail to be injured in a pecuniary sense by the acquisition. The principal industry of the State of Louisiana is the same as that of Cuba — the cultivation of sugar. But the soils of Louisiana are far inferior to those of Cuba — so much so that the sugar planters of that State are only able to hold their ground against the competition of their Cuban rivals by the assistance of a high protective duty. Now the immediate consequence of the annexation of Cuba to the South would be the abolition of the protection which the planters of Louisiana now enjoy — an event which could not fail to be followed by the disappearance, in great part, of the artificial production which it sustains. Nevertheless, Louisiana has formed no exception to the general eagerness of the South to appropriate Cuba : so far from this, it has curiously enough happened that the man who has been most prominent among the piratical party who have advocated this step is [295] Mr. Slidell, [195] the senator in Congress for the State of Louisiana. The sympathies which bind slaveholders together have thus always proved more powerful than the particular interests which would sunder them ; and whatever course the necessities of slavery, as a system, have prescribed, that the whole array of slaveholders, with a disregard for private ends, which, in a good cause, would be the highest virtue, has never hesitated to pursue.

The precedents, therefore, afforded by the past history of the South would lead us to expect that, so soon as the expediency of the African slave trade, in promoting the political interests of the Slave Power, became clear, the private advantage of particular states would be waived in deference to the requirements of the whole Confederacy. But, though this should not be so — though the Border states, when the trial came, should prove deficient in that public spirit which the working states in similar circumstances have never failed to exhibit — it is still quite inconceivable that what the public interests required should be permanently postponed to an opposition resting on such a basis. The men who now guide the councils of the Confederacy, from the moment of their accession to power to [296] the present time, have never shrunk from any act essential to their ends : such men, having carried their party triumphantly through a bloody civil war, would hardly allow themselves to be baffled by the selfish obstinacy of a few of their number. Indeed already the particular expedient to which, in the event of protracted obstinacy, recourse might be had, has been hinted at in no obscure terms. Mr. De Bow has advocated the re-opening of the African slave trade upon the distinct ground that it is necessary to extend the basis of slavery by bringing slaves within the reach of a larger number than, at their present price, are able to purchase them. By this means, he argues, increased stability would be given to the institution in proportion as the numbers interested in maintaining it should be increased. Of the soundness of this policy from the stand-point of the Slave Power there can, I think, be no question ; and for the means of carrying it out in the last resort the extreme party could be at no loss. Let the reader observe the purpose to which this argument might be turned in the event of a schism between the breeding and the working states on the point in question. It is well known that the possession of a slave is the great object of the poor white's ambition, and the most effectual means of gratifying this ambition would be to make slaves cheap. To rally, then, to the cause of free [297] trade in slaves this numerous class would be, indeed, an easy task. Nothing more would be needed than to appeal to their most obvious interest, to give play to their most cherished passion. [196] Everywhere— in Virginia and Kentucky no less than in the States of the extreme South — the opening of the African slave trade would be hailed with enthusiasm by the great bulk of the people ; and thus, whenever convenience demanded it, the resistance of an interested section might be overborne by the almost universal voice of the rest of the community.

To sum up the results of this part of the discussion : — on every hypothesis of Southern independence, save that which would be equivalent to the early extinction of the Slave Power, the re-opening of the African slave trade would be recommended to the South by almost irresistible inducements — in one contingency by considerations which appeal [298] to interests that are vital. The only restraints upon its action would be a clause in the Constitution and the private interests of a limited section. The anti-slave-trade clause, avowedly introduced from considerations of temporary expediency of which the urgency daily diminishes, unaccompanied by any provisions for its enforcement, and already set at defiance by public opinion, would not improbably, in the event of the ends of the Confederacy being made good, be formally repealed, but would, we may confidently assume, at all events be practically disregarded. As to the private interests of the breeding states, they would undoubtedly present a real obstacle to the revival of the trade ; but we have seen that, in the history of the South, private interests have always yielded to the demands of public policy, and they would probably do so in this case. Should, however, the monopolists of the 'old dominion' prove refractory, the leaders of the extreme party would have the remedy in their own hands. The protest of a narrow minority would be wholly powerless to stem the tide of popular feeling which they have it in their power at any moment to evoke.

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CHAPTER IX. GENERAL CONCLUSIONS.↩

What is the duty of European nations towards North America in the present crisis of its history ? I answer — to observe a strict neutrality between the contending parties, giving their moral support to that settlement of the question which is most in accordance with the general interest of the world. What ground is there for European interference in the quarrel ? In the present aspect of affairs absolutely none — none, that is to say, which would not equally justify interference in every war which ever occurred. I say in the present aspect of affairs, for in a different aspect of affairs I can well imagine that a different course would be justifiable, and might even become a duty. Supposing free society in North America in danger of being overborne by the Slave Power, would not the threatened predominance in the new world of a confederacy resting on slavery as its corner stone, and proclaiming the propagandism of slavery as its mission, be an occasion for the interference of civilized nations ? If there be reason that civilized nations should combine to resist the aggressions of Russia — a country [300] containing the germs of a vigorous and progressive civilization — would there be none for opposing the establishment of "a barbarous and barbarizing Power" — a Power of whose existence slavery is the final cause ? But that contingency is happily not now probable ; and in the present position of the American contest there is not even a plausible pretext for intervention. It is unhappily true that our trade is suffering, that much distress prevails in our manufacturing districts, and that we are threatened with even more serious consequences than have yet been felt. [197] But is this a plausible pretext for interfering in a foreign war ? How can a great war be carried on without disturbing the commerce of the world ? For what purpose are blockades instituted and permitted ? To say that, because we are injuriously affected by a blockade we will not recognize it, is simply to say that we do not choose to be bound by laws longer than it suits our convenience — is to throw away even the pretence of justice. [198] But interference in the present case would be not merely [301] immoral, it would be futile — nay, if the relief of distress be really the object of those who urge it, it would, we can scarce doubt, aggravate a hundredfold the evils it was intended to cure. For, supposing the blockade of the Southern ports to be raised, to what purpose would be this result if the war continued ? It would, doubtless, carry comfort to the Slave Confederacy ; it might possibly bring a few hundred thousand bales of cotton to Europe ; but, in the present condition of the South, with Northern armies encamped on its soil, it would not cause cotton to be grown, and still less would it open Northern markets to our manufactures. A fleet may raise a blockade, but it cannot compel a people to buy goods who do not want them. Intervention in America would, therefore, fail to restore trade to its normal channels ; and it is admittedly to a disturbance in the normal channels of trade far more than to scarcity of any single commodity — to a cessation of Northern demand far more than to an interruption of Southern supply — that the [302] distress now experienced in England is due. [199] Now the cessation of Northern demand will continue as long as the war continues ; so that the effect of intervention on manufacturing distress would depend on its effect on the duration of the war. And what would be this effect ? On such a subject it would be absurd to speak with confidence ; but there is one historical parallel which comes so close to the present case that we should do well to ponder it. In 1792 an armed intervention of European Powers took place in France. The allied sovereigns were not less confident of their ability to impose conditions on the French people, than are those who now urge intervention in America of the ability of France and England to settle the affairs of that continent. But we know how the intervention of 1792, ended. The spirit of democracy, allying itself with the spirit of patriotism, kindled in the people of France an energy which not merely drove back the invaders from their soil, but which carried the invaded people as conquerors over the length and breadth of continental Europe. Such was the effect of a policy of intervention in the affairs of a great European nation, What reason have we to expect a different result from a similar policy pursued in America ? Has democracy in America shown less energy than in Europe ? Is its organization less [303] effective ? Is the spirit of its patriotism less powerful ? Are the resources which it commands for war less extensive ? Or will the adversaries of democracy fight it with greater advantage across the reach of the Atlantic ? I am assuming that an intervention, if attempted, would be resolutely carried out : that a mere interference by our navies would only exacerbate and prolong the quarrel is so obvious as to disentitle such a proposition to a moment's serious regard. The duty of neutrality is, therefore, in the present case as plainly marked out by the dictates of selfish policy as by the maxims of morality and law. While intervention would fail to alleviate the evils under which we suffer, it would almost certainly add to those evils the calamity of a great war — a war which would bequeath to the posterity of the combatants a legacy of mutual hatred, destined to embitter their relations for centuries to come.

But the duty of neutrality is not incompatible with the rendering of moral support. We may be required to abstain from giving effect to our convictions by force, but we can never be justly required to abstain from advancing them by moral means. Nay, so long as the conflict between good and evil lasts, the obligation to sustain the right cause by sympathy and counsel is one from which we cannot relieve ourselves. It becomes, therefore, of extreme [304] importance to consider what is that settlement of the American contest which deserves the moral support of Europe.

There are two modes of terminating the present war, either of which must, it seems to me, be almost equally deprecated by every friend of freedom and of the American people : — such a triumph of the Southern party as would give to it the command of the unsettled districts to the south and west ; and such a reconstruction of the Union as would restore slavery to its former footing in the Republic. It is, I think, difficult to say which of these results would be the more extensively disastrous. The one would establish, amid all the éclat of victory, a slave empire, commanding the resources of half a continent, fired with an ardent ambition, and cherishing vast designs of aggression and conquest. The other would once more commit a moral and freedom-loving people — the main hope of civilization in the New World — to complicity with the damning guilt of slavery. The Union, restored on the principle of restricting slavery, would not indeed be the same Union as that in which the Slave Power was predominant. But fortune is capricious in politics as in war. A few years might bring a change in the position of parties ; and a revolution of the wheel might once again commit the central government to the propagandists of slavery. Even should this [305] worst result not happen, the corrupting influence of the alliance would remain ; the continued connivance at the perpetration of a great wrong would again force the Republic into degrading compliances, and the progress of political degeneracy, arrested for a moment by the shock of violent reaction, would proceed as before. Between the evils of such a termination of the contest and the absolute triumph of the Slave power, it would, perhaps, not be easy to decide.

A year ago either of these results, almost equally to be deplored, seemed almost equally probable. The Northern people, taken by surprise, its leaders unaccustomed to power, its arsenals in the hands of its enemies, with traitors in its public offices, divided into parties holding discordant views and recommending different courses, unanimous only in one strong wish — a desire at all events to uphold the Union — seemed for a time prepared to make almost any concession which promised to secure this end. On the other hand, no vacillation marked the South. With the directness of men who, fixed in their ends, have little scruple in their choice of means, its leaders were urgent to precipitate the catastrophe. Their skilfully contrived treason had secured for them the principal forts and almost the whole military stores of the Republic. The most experienced officers in the United States' army were their trusted [306] agents, and were rapidly passing over 'to their side. Elated by success and confident in their resources, it seemed, at the outset of the contest, that they had all but accomplished their daring scheme — that little remained for them but to seize upon Washington, [200] and dictate from the capitol the terms of separation. Such was the position of affairs when the contest opened. A year has passed, and contingencies which then appeared imminent seem no longer within the range of possible events. In presence of the searching test which real danger applies to political theories, and amid the enthusiasm kindled by war, the political education of the North has [307] made rapid progress. The true source of disaffection to the Union, so long concealed by the arts of temporizing politicians, has been laid bare, and is no longer doubted. The impossibility of bringing free and slave societies into harmonious co-operation under the same political system begins to be understood. The absolute necessity of, at all hazards, breaking the strength of the Slave Power, as the first step towards re-establishing political society in North America, is rapidly becoming the accepted creed. Meanwhile, the advance of the Northern armies in the field has kept pace with that of opinion in the public assemblies, and, by an almost unbroken series of fruitful victories, the military superiority of the North seems now to be definitively established. [201] In this aspect of affairs — with anti-slavery opinions making rapid way in the North, and Northern armies steadily advancing on the Southern States — the reconstruction of the Union, with slavery retained on its former footing, and still more the complete triumph of the Slave Power, may, it seems to me, be fairly dismissed from our consideration. Nay, I think, the actual state of facts, taken in connexion with the resources of the contending parties, warrants us in going a step further, and holding that, in the absence of foreign intervention, the South must in the end succumb to its opponent. If [308] this be so, what remains to be decided is this : on what terms shall the submission of the South be made ? — shall it return to the Union to be ruled by the North, or secede under conditions to be prescribed by its conqueror? Assuming these to be the practical issues involved in the struggle at the stage to which it has now attained, I shall proceed to consider to what determination of it the moral support of Europe should be given.

It seems impossible to doubt that, at the present time, the prevailing purpose of the Northern people aims at no less than a complete reconstruction of the Union in its original proportions. The project admits of being regarded under several aspects : — how far is it justifiable ? — how far is it practicable ? — how far is it expedient ? On each of these points some remarks suggest themselves.

The forcible imposition on some millions of human beings of a form of government at variance with their wishes, is an act which undoubtedly demands special grounds for its justification. Whether the South be regarded as a portion of the same nation with the North, or as a distinct people, it seems, on either view of the case, impossible that an attempt to subjugate, for the purpose of ruling, it, can be reconciled with the maxims of political morality which we regard in this country as applicable to the ordinary practice of civilized nations.If, then, [309] these maxims admit of no exception, this branch of the argument is resolved, and the justification of the present views of the North must be given up. But, writing in a nation which holds in subjection under despotic rule two hundred millions of another race, it is scarcely necessary to say that maxims which condemn, without regard to circumstances, the imposition on a people of a foreign and despotic yoke are no portion of the moral code of this country. The people of India may or may not desire to be governed by Great Britain ; but assuredly the wishes of the people of India are not the grounds on which an English statesman would justify Great Britain in holding that country in subjection. It follows, then, that it is consistent with political morality, as conceived in this country, that in certain cases the principles of constitutional government and those of non-intervention should be set aside, and that a government should compel a portion of its subjects, or a people should intervene to compel another people, to accept a form of government at variance with the wishes of those on whom it is imposed. [202] [310] Now, if it be admitted that circumstances can in any case create an exception to the ordinary rules of political and international practice regarded as binding upon civilized nations, we need have little hesitation in asserting that the present case is exceptional.

What is the fact with which we have to deal ? A few hundred thousand slaveholders break loose from the political system with which they were connected, and erect a confederacy on the avowed basis of slavery. From the past history of these men, and from the condition of society presented in the country [311] which they govern, we have the clearest proofs as to what this scheme involves. We know that it involves the maintenance of a social system at once retrograde and aggressive — retrograde towards those on whom it is imposed, and aggressive towards the communities with which it comes into contact. We know that it involves the design of extending the power of this confederation, and, with its power, the worst form of human servitude which mankind has ever seen, over the fairest portions of the New World. We know that in all probability — with a probability approaching to certainty — it involves an [312] attempt to revive a great scandal, the African slave trade — a scandal which all Christian nations have agreed to stigmatize, and which Great Britain in particular has for half a century devoted her best influence, and a vast outlay of treasure, to suppress. We know that this body aims at political independence, not for that lawful purpose which makes political independence the first of national rights — the purpose of working out a people's proper destiny — but for a purpose which makes it the greatest of national crimes — the purpose of riveting dependence upon another race — the purpose of extending and consolidating a barbarous tyranny. Now, these being the ends for which the Southern Confederacy seeks to establish itself, is its subjugation by the North justifiable ? I hold that the right is as clear as the right to put down murder or piracy. As a nation, we, in common with civilized Europe, have proscribed as piracy the African slave trade. In the opinion of competent judges the inter-state slave trade in the South involves enormities as great as any that have been enacted on the coast of Guinea or in the middle passage ; [203] and it is certain that the [313] purpose for which the Confederacy is established — the appropriation of the Territories for slave cultivation— cannot be carried into effect without giving a powerful impulse certainly to one, and probably to both, of those crimes. Unless, therefore, we are prepared to retreat from the position which, as a nation, we have deliberately taken up and consistently held for half a century, we cannot deny that the overthrow of the Southern Confederacy would be a public benefit ; and, even though we should question the perfect purity of the motives of those [314] who undertake it, the act itself must be acknowledged as a service to the civilized world.

That the overthrow of the Southern Confederacy is justifiable — so far as the duties of the North to that community are concerned — appears to me, therefore, as clear as any doctrine in the code of political ethics. But, being justifiable, is it practicable ? Into the general merits of this branch of the argument it would not become me to enter ; but, without pretending to pronounce an opinion on the ability of the North to subdue the revolted states, it may be permitted me to advert to some considerations bearing upon this part of the case which do not appear to have received from those who have undertaken to discuss it that degree of attention to which their importance would seem to entitle them. The argument of those who deny the ability of the North to effect its purpose of reconstructing the Union rests, for the most part, on historical analogies, and, more particularly, on the successful resistance made by the ancestors of the present belligerents to the authority of Great Britain. Now a brief consideration will show that the present case differs from all previous examples of successful revolt in some important respects, and we shall find that, in every instance in which the analogy fails, the difference points in the same direction — it indicates greater facility of conquest in the present struggle.

[315]

In the parallel furnished by the revolutionary war of the last century it is an obvious point of difference that Great Britain, in that case, carried on the contest under the enormous disadvantage of being separated from her enemy by an intervening ocean — a disadvantage of such magnitude as, in the opinion of Tocqueville, to detract indefinitely from the prowess of the victors — whereas now the North stands close to its foe. Such a difference is almost enough to deprive of all force arguments drawn from the analogy of the two cases ; yet the circumstance has been scarcely adverted to by those who have most strenuously pressed the analogy. But, passing by a point which is peculiar to the comparison with the war of independence, there are others in which the present is distinguished from all previous examples of insurrectionary success.

And, first, while the South is in the present war liable to an absolute interruption of its external trade, it is of all countries which ever existed the least capable of encountering such a crisis. I say the South is liable to an absolute interruption of its external trade, for, notwithstanding the exploits of the Merrimac, it is quite inconceivable — having regard to the mercantile marine and the mechanical resources of the contending parties — that the North should not be able in the long run to maintain a [316] permanent superiority at sea. It may, therefore, be assumed that the new Confederacy will be absolutely cut off from commercial intercourse with foreign nations ; and, this being so, it is obvious further to remark that of all communities in the world it is the one least prepared to meet such an emergency — the least capable of supplying its own wants. To feel convinced of this we have but to recall its industrial system — a system composed of slaves brutalized by ignorance and tyranny, accustomed to perform a few routine operations, and utterly inefficient if taken from their ordinary tasks. It is true, indeed, the crisis has compelled a certain deviation from the old routine ; the cultivation of corn has already in some places been substituted for that of cotton. But it cannot be doubted that the change has been effected at a great loss of industrial power, and, however slaves may be turned from one kind of agricultural pursuit to another, beyond the range of agriculture they must be absolutely useless. The plantation slave of the South can never be converted into a skilled artisan ; consequently, all those commodities for the supply of which the South has been accustomed to rely on the industrial skill of foreign countries it must now be content to dispense with altogether. Now amongst such commodities are many which are absolutely essential for the conduct of war. The consideration, therefore, is one which [317] touches a vital point in the ability of the South to maintain a prolonged resistance. Hitherto, by its plunder of the military stores of the United States while its leaders were in possession of the government, and by the fruits of its early victories, it has been enabled to maintain itself ; but, as its present supplies become exhausted and cease to be replenished by successes in the field, it is not easy to see how this necessity can be met.

Another circumstance which has been almost wholly overlooked in this argument, is the change which railways may effect in the facilities for aggressive warfare. In none of those cases in which a war of independence has been maintained with success against the superior forces of an invader has this resource been available. This consideration applies directly to a point on which great stress has been laid by the partisans of the South — the difficulties offered to conquest by mere vastness of extent. There can, I suppose, be no doubt that this circumstance gives a great advantage to the party which is on the defensive ; but a country traversed by railways is, for practical purposes, reduced to a tenth of its real size. That the novel conditions thus imported into military tactics have not been overlooked by the commanders on either side is fully proved by the nature of their plans, which have been conceived chiefly with a view to utilizing [318] this new arm of warfare. Thus the expeditions to Hatteras, to Roanoke Island, and to Port Royal, appear now to have been dictated by a consideration of the command conferred by these positions over the railways which connect the Carolinas with Virginia on the one hand, and with Georgia on the other. Again, the importance of Nashville, as a strategical point, consists in its being the central terminus of three grand lines, proceeding respectively from Washington, from Richmond, and from Charleston to the West ; and the possession of Corinth was rendered important by an analogous reason. Railways have thus introduced a new element into warfare of sufficient importance to modify the whole plan of a campaign ; and railways apply directly to overcoming the impediment of distance — the circumstance which has been urged as the most insuperable obstacle to the conquest of the South. [204]

[319]

Again, in no war of independence which has been successfully waged has the invaded nation included among its inhabitants a multitude, one-third of its whole number, who were either positively hostile, or at least absolutely indifferent to the cause. Such a multitude exists in the midst of the Southern population ; and by this hostile and indifferent multitude the whole productive industry of the country is carried on. Now, as the Federal armies advance into the Southern States, what will be the behaviour of the negro population ? They will probably do as they have done hitherto : they will fly to the Federal lines ; and though they should not rise in insurrection, they will at least cease to work. Now, when the negroes cease to work, how is the South to maintain an army ? The "white trash" may be made to fight, but they will [320] scarcely be made to work — at all events they will be unable to do both. It would seem, therefore, that, so soon as the South is once thoroughly penetrated by the Northern armies, a collapse of its productive system is inevitable.

These are some of the circumstances in which the present contest in America differs from those successful wars of defence with which it is usual to compare it. I am far from intending to say that the considerations which have been adduced prove the possibility of accomplishing the object which the North has now in view ; but they seem to me to show that the facilities for that purpose are greater than is commonly supposed, and they at least suggest caution against building hasty conclusions upon inapplicable precedents.

But, thirdly, assuming the reconstruction of the Union to be practicable, is it expedient ? And here we are met at once by the consideration — how is the conquered South to be governed ? I can see but one way in which this can be effected — by the overthrow of representative institutions in the Southern States, and the substitution of a centralized despotism wielded by the Federal government. I cannot imagine that there could be any escape from this course ; for, granting that in certain districts of the South there might be a considerable element of population favourable to the Union, it is impossible [321] to doubt that in the main the people would be thoroughly disaffected ; and how are popular institutions to be worked through the agency of a disaffected people ? A recourse to despotic expedients would, therefore, so far as we can judge, be forced upon the North. Now, it is evident that such a step involves considerations of the greatest gravity — considerations before which the citizens of the Union may well pause and ponder. If, indeed, the consequences of this policy could be certainly confined within the designed limits, there would, perhaps, be little need for hesitation. At the worst, it would be no more than the substitution of one form of arbitrary power for another — of a civilized for a barbarous despotism — and if the new government were only equal to its task of reconstructing Southern society, its advent would be wholly a blessing. But despotic principles once introduced into the system of the Federal government, is it conceivable that their influence would end in the attainment of the object for the accomplishment of which they were at the first invoked ? Is it likely that the same men, who should be exercising arbitrary authority over the whole of the Southern States, would be content, in governing the Northern, to confine themselves within constitutional bounds ? Would there not be the danger that habits acquired in ruling one division of the republic would affect modes of action [322] in the other, and that, as soon as popular institutions became troublesome in the working, they would be superseded in favour of the more direct and obvious expedients of despotism ? Besides it must be remembered that something more would be required to govern a disaffected South than a staff of officials. The bureaucracy would need to be supported by an army, and the army would of necessity be at the disposal of the central government. It would be easy, of course, to prescribe constitutional rules, to define with precision the limits of administrative authority ; but when the temper of arbitrary sway had been formed, when the example of an arbitrary system was constantly present to the eye and familiar to the thoughts, when the means of giving effect to arbitrary tastes were at hand, it is difficult to believe that the barrier of forms and definitions would be long respected, and that sooner or later the attempt would not be made to give to the principles of arbitrary government a more extended application. The task of holding the South in subjection would thus, as it seems to me, inevitably imperil the cause of popular institutions in North America. Now, the loss of popular government would be a heavy price to pay for the subjugation of the South, even though that subjugation involved the overthrow of the Slave Power.

It is satisfactory to find that there are politicians [323] in America who are alive to the momentous interests which this aspect of the question involves. In a remarkable speech lately delivered in New York, the danger to which I have adverted was very fairly and with much courage exposed. The speaker, however, contended that, by boldly following out a policy of emancipation — by striking at the root of disaffection through its cause — the danger in question might be evaded. The views expressed are so important, and, looking at the recent course of events, give so much promise of becoming fruitful, that I think it right to state them in the eloquent words of their author.

"Is this government, in struggling against rebellion, in re-establishing its authority, reduced to a policy which would nearly obliterate the line separating democracy from absolutism ? Is it really unable to stand this test of its character ? For this is the true test of the experiment. If our democratic institutions pass this crisis unimpaired, they will be stronger than ever ; if not, the decline will be rapid and irremediable. But can they pass it unimpaired ? Yes. This republic has her destiny in her hands. She may transform her greatest danger and distress into the greatest triumph of her principles. There would have been no rebellion, had there not been a despotic interest incompatible with the spirit of her democratic institutions; and [324] she has the glorious and inestimable privilege of suppressing this rebellion, by enlarging liberty instead of restraining it, by granting rights instead of violating them. . . . How can you rely upon the Southern people unless they are sincerely loyal, and how can they be sincerely loyal as long as their circumstances are such as to make disloyalty the natural condition of their desires and aspirations ? They cannot be faithful unless their desires and aspirations change. And how can you change them ?By opening before them new prospects and a new future.Look at the other side of the picture.Imagine slavery were destroyed in consequence of this rebellion. Slavery, once destroyed, can never be restored. . . . Southern society being, with all its habits and interests, no longer identified with slavery, that element of the population will rise to prominent influence which most easily identifies itself with free labour — I mean the non-slaveholding people of the South. They have been held in a sort of moral subjection by the great slave-lords. Not for themselves but for them they were disloyal. The destruction of slavery will wipe out the prestige of their former rulers ; it will lift the yoke from their necks ; they will soon think for themselves, and thinking freely they will not fail to understand their true interests. They will find in free labour society their natural element ; and free labour [325] society is naturally loyal to the Union. Let the old political leaders fret as they please, it is the free labour majority that will give to society its character and tone. This is what I mean by so reforming Southern society as to make loyalty to the Union its natural temper and disposition. This done, the necessity of a military occupation, the rule of force, will cease ; our political life will soon return to the beaten track of self-government, and the restored Union may safely trust itself to the good faith of a reformed people. The antagonistic element which continually struggled against the vital principles of our system of government once removed, we shall be a truly united people, with common principles, common interests, common hopes, and a common future." [205]

Such is the spirit in which the question of reconstructing the Union is now approached by some of the leading minds of the North, and such are the views which are now rapidly gaining ground through the country. While, however, readily acknowledging the proof which these speculations afford at once of a full appreciation of the real difficulties to be encountered and of philosophic boldness in meeting them, I am unable to see that the remedy suggested would obviate the danger which, it is admitted, [326] would exist. In the reasoning which I have quoted no account appears to be taken of the element of time, so all-important to a realization of the results anticipated. The abolition of slavery, it is truly said, would strike directly at the authority of the slave-lords. The stigma at present affixed to industry being removed, the industrial classes would quickly rise in social importance, and a free labouring population would doubtless in the end predominate in the South. But these results could not be accomplished in a moment. A disloyal people would not be rendered loyal by a single stroke of the manumitter's wand —

"rerum imperiis hominumque
Tot tantisque minor, quern ter vindicta quaterque
Imposita haud unquam misera, formidine privet."

The habits of obedience are not easily broken through, traditional feelings are powerful, and the influence of the slave-lords would probably long outlive the institution from which it derives its strength. A considerable period would, therefore, of necessity, elapse before that pervading sentiment of loyalty could be established, under the guidance of which alone, as all admit, the rule of the Union could be safely entrusted to popular institutions.

But there is another result which might follow from the conquest of the South and the overthrow of slavery, the probable effects of which on the settlement [327] of Southern society it may be worth while for a moment to consider. Is it not probable that, in the case we now contemplate, there would be an extensive immigration into the Southern States of free settlers from the North ? And what would be the effect of this new ingredient on the society of the South ? I imagine it would in the main be a wholesome one. The new settlers would carry with them the ideas, the enterprise, the progressive spirit of free society, and would act as a leaven of loyalty on the disaffection of the South ; but I think it is equally plain they would introduce into Southern society, at all events for some time, a new element of disturbance. They would appear there as intruders, as the missionaries of a new social and political faith — a faith hateful to the old dominion, as living monuments of the humiliation of the Southern people. Is it not inevitable that between them and the old aristocracy a bitter feud would spring up — a feud which would soon be exasperated by mutual injuries, and might not impossibly be transmitted, as a heritage of hatred to future generations ? Now such a condition of society would be little favourable to the sudden conversion of the South to sentiments of loyalty ; and, pending this happy consummation, how is the South to be governed? We are thus forced back upon our original difficulty — the difficulty of governing a disaffected South, from which, [328] it seems to me, the path of despotism offers the only escape.

For these reasons, I cannot think that the North is well advised in its attempt to reconstruct the Union in its original proportions. [206] At the same time I am far from thinking that the time for peace has yet arrived. What, it seems to me, the occasion demands, and what, I think, the moral feeling of [329] Europe should support the North in striving for, is a degree of success which shall compel the South to accept terms of separation, such as the progress of civilization in America and the advancement of human interests throughout the world imperatively require. To determine the exact amount of concession on the part of the South which would satisfy these conditions is no part of my purpose. The attempt would be futile. It will suffice that I indicate as distinctly as I can that settlement of the controversy which would, in my judgment, adequately secure the ends proposed, and which on the whole is most to be desired.

Any scheme for the readjustment of political society in North America ought, it seems to me, to embrace two leading objects : — 1st, the greatest practical curtailment of the domain of the Slave Power; and 2nd, the reabsorption into the sphere of free society of as much of the present population of the Slave States as can be reabsorbed without detriment to the interests of freedom. On the assumption which I have made of the ability of the Northern people to subdue the South, these two conditions resolve themselves into one. This being assumed, the only obstacle to a complete reconstruction of the Union lies in the difficulty of combining in the same political system forms of society so different as those presented by the Northern and [330] Southern States. We may then, for the purpose of our discussion, confine our attention to the latter of the two conditions which have been laid down.

It will be remembered that, in considering, in a former chapter, the consequences of confining the Southern Confederacy within the area already settled under slavery, it was pointed out that slavery, thus restricted, would be at once arrested in its development, and that the check given to the system would be first felt in the older or breeding states. In these states the profits from slavery being derived chiefly from the sale, not from the employment, of slaves, so soon as the creation of new markets for the human stock was precluded, the reasons for maintaining the institution would cease. The slaveholders, obliged henceforward to look to the soil as the sole source of their profits, would be forced upon improved methods of cultivation ; and before the necessity for improved methods slavery would perforce disappear. Now, this being the position of slavery in the breeding states, it is evident that, so soon as the progress of the Northern armies shall have made it clear that the Slave Power must fail in its original design — still more when the South is menaced with positive curtailment of its dominions — the slaveholders of these states will understand that, so far as their interests are concerned, the institution is doomed. But this conviction will [331] be brought home to them by still more cogent reasons than those which reflection on their economic condition would furnish. The breeding states are also the Border states, and they are therefore the states on which the evils of invasion must in the first instance fall. Already [207] nearly the whole of Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri, is in possession of the Northern armies. Observe, then, the light in which, in the present aspect of affairs, the question of secession must present itself to a border slaveholder. He sees that for him the extinction of slavery is rendered certain in an early future. His slaves are flying to the Federal armies. His country is suffering all the evils of invasion. The tie which bound him to the Slave Power is hopelessly severed. In this position of affairs is it not probable that, were the opportunity of re-establishing social order upon a new basis presented to him, he would seize it, and, the old system of society having irrevocably passed away, that he would in good faith cast in his lot with a new order of things ?

Such an opportunity has been created for the Border states by the adoption by Congress of Mr. Lincoln's recent message, recommending a co-operation on the part of the Federal government with such states as are willing to accept a policy of emancipationThe scheme, indeed, has been [332] pronounced in this country to be chimerical — framed less with a view to the actual exigencies of the case than to catch the applause of Europe. I venture to say that never was criticism less appropriate, or censure more unjust. Practicality and unaffected earnestness of purpose are written in every line of the message. In the full knowledge evinced of the actual circumstances of the Border states, combined with the adroitness with which advantage is taken of their peculiar position as affected by passing events, there is displayed a rare political sagacity, which is not more creditable to its author than is the genuine sincerity which shines through his simple and weighty words. Had the scheme indeed been propounded at the outset of the contest (as so many well-meaning empirics among us were forward to advise) — while the Slave Power was yet unbroken, and the prospects of a future more prosperous than it had yet known seemed to be opening before it, there would have been some point in the strictures which have been indulged in, some ground for invidious comment ; but, proposed at the present time, it is, as I venture to think, a suggestion than which few more wise or more important have ever been submitted to a legislative body. [208]

[333]

Returning to our argument, it has been seen that in the event of the tide of war being decisively turned against the South, the position, alike industrial and geographical, of the Border states would greatly favour a reconstruction of society in them upon principles of freedom. Now, this result would [334] be powerfully helped forward by another circumstance in respect to which they differ from the more southern states of the Confederacy — the presence in their population of a large element of free cultivators. This interest, already in some of the Border states [209] almost balancing that of slavery, [335] would, it is evident, in the altered condition of affairs, rise rapidly into importance. Occupying that place in the social arrangements towards which the whole community was obviously tending, constantly increasing in numbers as the progress of emancipation brought new recruits to its ranks — a nucleus [336] of loyalty around which all the best elements of society might gather — this section of the population would easily take the lead in the politics of their several states, would give tone to the whole community, and determine its march.

It would thus seem that, the might of the Slave Power once effectually broken, the incorporation of the Border states into a social system based on industrial freedom would not present any insuperable difficulties. It would be only necessary to give support to tendencies which the actual state of things would call at once into operation. Now, what might be done in the Border states, where a slave society actually exists, might, it is evident, be accomplished with much greater facility in those districts of the South which, though enrolled as slave states, have in reality yet to be colonized — for example, in Texas and Arkansas, In Texas population is represented by considerably less than one person to the square mile ; in Arkansas, by four ; and of this sprinkling of people three-fourths in both states are composed of free persons. [210] To the recovery of these states to the dominion of freedom there would at least be no social or political obstacles which might not be easily overcome. Arkansas and Texas recovered, Louisiana alone of the states on the west of the Mississippi would remain to the [337] Slave Power ; and is it not possible that Louisiana also might be recovered to freedom ? Doubtless its pro-slavery tendencies are intensely strong ; its slave population almost equals the free ; but the state is a small one, and the prize would be worth an extraordinary effort. Louisiana conquered, Arkansas and Texas recovered to freedom, the whole course of the Mississippi would be opened to the Western States ; and the Slave Power — shut up within its narrowed domain, bounded on one side by the Gulf of Mexico and the ocean, on the other by the line of the Alleghanies and the Mississippi, — might with some confidence be left to that process of natural decay which slave institutions, arrested in their expansion, inevitably entail.

I have hitherto discussed this question with reference to the interests of the Northern people on the one hand, and to those of civilization, as identified with the overthrow of the Slave Power, on the other. But there is another interest involved in the settlement of the American quarrel which may not seem at once to be identical with either of these — the interest of the present race of negro slaves. The mode of terminating the struggle which I have indicated as that which seems to me on the whole most desirable, though, if realized, it would probably bring freedom to a million of slaves, would yet, it is [338] not to be denied, leave some three millions still in bondage ; and there are those who will probably think that this after all would be but a sorry result from the great opportunities of the present conjuncture, and from the great sacrifices which it has already cost. Far wiser, it will be said, as well as more generous would it be, now that the hand has been put to the plough, not to look back till the work has been effectually accomplished, and the great wrong once for all rased out. With the aspirations of those who hold this language I trust I can sympathize ; but it seems to me that they fail to appreciate the magnitude of the problem which the policy they recommend involves. No solution of that problem would be complete, or would be worthy of the enlightened views of the present time, which did not include, besides the mere manumission of the negro population, their protection against the efforts of their former masters to recover their lost power, and, no less, the provision for them of a career in the future. Now, let us suppose the first of these ends to be accomplished — emancipation to be decreed — and overlooking the objection to what would be the necessary condition of an attempt to give effect to the second — the establishment in the South of a despotic rule wielded by the central government — how, let us ask, is it proposed to provide a career for four millions of emancipated slaves ? It will be said, the [339] land still remains to be cultivated ; and the labour of the negroes will be as necessary for its cultivation after they have been emancipated as before. The career for the emancipated negro would, therefore, be plain : he would, as a free labourer, hire his services to those who now take them by force. In a word, a population of four million slaves might be converted into a population of four million free labourers. This is, in truth, the only mode of solving the question that deserves serious attention ; for I do not think that the plans, of which we have lately heard something, of a wholesale removal of negroes from the American continent — even where they are not advanced for the purpose simply of discrediting the cause of emancipation — can be so regarded. But, taking the policy of immediate and universal emancipation in its best form, and judging it in a spirit of candour, is it a reasonable expectation that, looking at all the conditions of the case, the result which is contemplated would be realized, — that the negro, on the one hand, and the planter, on the other, would lend themselves to the scheme ? I am certainly not going to oppose to the proposal the exploded calumny of the incorrigible indolence of the negro. I am quite ready to admit, what nothing but the pernicious influence of slavery on the negro would ever have given a pretext for denying, and what our [340] West Indian experiment has now conclusively established, [211] that the negro in freedom is amenable to the same influences as the white man — that he can appreciate as keenly independence, comfort, and affluence, and that, like him, he will work and save and speculate to obtain these blessings ; nevertheless, [341] while conceding all this, I confess I am unable to see my way to the result that is here expected.

The grand difficulty to be encountered in any scheme of emancipation which proposes to convert suddenly a régime of forced into one of hired labour, is the state of feeling which slavery leaves behind it in the minds of those who have taken part in its working. With the master there is a feeling of exasperation which leads him to thwart the operation of a system which has been forced upon him and which is odious to him, combined with a desire to re-establish under some new form his old tyranny ; while the emancipated bondman naturally desires to break for ever with a mode of life which is associated with his degradation. These principles of disturbance were brought fully into play in the West Indian experiment ; [212] but they were in that case [342] largely controlled by the condition of things in the West Indian islands. The strong arm of the British Government put an effectual restraint on the tyrannical temper of the masters ; [213] while in some of the islands the preoccupation of the land closed against the slave the one refuge from a hated lot. This, for example, was the case in Barbadoes, and in this island, accordingly, a system of hired industry was easily introduced. But the case of Barbadoes was exceptional, and, in the main, emancipation in the West Indies has issued, not in the conversion of a population of slaves into a population of labourers working for hire, but in the creation of a numerous [343] class of small negro proprietors, each cultivating in independence his own patch of ground. It may thus be stated generally that, wherever the waste land was abundant, the West Indian experiment, so far as the point at present under consideration is concerned, broke down. The plantations were extensively deserted, and the negroes, instead of becoming hired labourers, became peasant farmers on the vacant land. Those principles of disturbance which slavery leaves after it, though largely controlled, were yet sufficiently powerful to prevent the general establishment of a system of hired labour. [214]

Now what would be the chance of replacing [344] negro slavery with hired labour in the Southern States ? If we look to the condition of society there, we find that the usual disturbing causes exist in exaggerated force, while there is little to counteract them in the other conditions of the case. Nowhere else has pro-slavery fanaticism been so strong ; the belief in the moral soundness of the[345] institution has been nowhere so implicit ; nowhere, therefore, would the introduction of a system of free industry have to encounter on the part of the masters such violent prejudices. Again, the desire of the emancipated negro to break with his former mode of life could scarce fail to be here extremely strong ; for, although the treatment of the slaves was perhaps harsher in the West Indies than it has for the most part been in the Confederate States, the degradation of the race had neither there nor elsewhere reached so low a point ; and, as a principle of repulsion, the feeling of shame would probably be not less powerful than that of hatred. On the other hand, who can suppose, — bearing in mind the unworthy antipathy to the negro which still animates the great majority of the American people, and which perhaps emancipation would do little to remove ; bearing in mind the effects of a long complicity with slavery on the traditions of the Federal government — who, I say, impressed with these facts, can suppose that the negro of the Southern States would in that people and government find efficient protectors ? Would there be no fear that the protector might have less sympathy with the victim than even the tyrant against whom protection was claimed ? But even on the assumption that the spirit of the Federal government and of the Northern people was excellent, would the task of protecting the negro be [346] feasible in the South ? Throughout the whole slave domain, but especially in the more southern of the Slave States, there are, as we know, vast regions of wilderness. Over these wanders a miserable white population, idle, lawless, and cherishing for the negro a contempt, which, on his being raised to their level by emancipation, would be quickly converted into hatred. Now, remembering what has happened in those West Indian islands which offer the nearest analogy to the present case — remembering what has occurred, for example, in Trinidad [215] — is it not almost [347] certain that, so soon as emancipation was decreed the negroes would betake themselves to these wilds? and, dispersed over this vast region, what would be their fate? How could they be protected? How could they be trained to a higher mode of life ? They would there encounter the white man in a condition as wretched as their own. His example could not fail to influence them. They would acquire his vagabond tastes, and emulate his idleness. They would be wholly at his mercy. Efficient protection would be impossible over a region so vast. The growth of regular industry would be hopeless ; and the too probable result would be that the whole South would be abandoned to the dominion of nature, and negro and white man go to ruin together. [216]

[348]

On the other hand, looking at the problem of emancipation, as it would present itself under that settlement of the American question which I have ventured to indicate as desirable, I am unable to see that it would involve any difficulty which a government, really bent on accomplishing its object, might not be fairly expected to overcome. In the first place, it would, as thus presented, at once assume more manageable proportions. The evil might be dealt with in detail, and the experience acquired in the earlier efforts might be made available at the further stages of the process. The attack would in the first instance be directed against the weakest part of the system — the institution in the Border states. In those states, not only is slavery less strongly established than in the states further south, it is also milder in its character. The relation subsisting between master and slave being less embittered, the obstacles to a re-establishment of their connexion upon a new footing would be less formidable. The wilderness, indeed, — the greatest difficulty of the case — would not be wholly absent even in the Border states ; but its dimensions would here be less vast, and these, as the abolition of slavery drew a fresh immigration from the adjoining states of the North, would in all probability be rapidly reduced. Even should the negroes repair to the wilds in considerable numbers, the case would not be so hopeless. [349] They would meet here in many districts, not the "mean whites," but a population of free cultivators, whose example, it is not to be doubted, would exercise on their character and pursuits an influence as wholesome as that of the others would be baneful. In these peasant cultivators the free negro would behold industry in its most respectable and most prosperous form ; and, with their example before him, he would probably settle down into the same condition of life with them.

But while in the reannexed states a career would be provided for the emancipated negro, his brother, still left in bondage in the South, would ere long find that for him also a new era was opening. Cut off from the rich virgin soils of the south-west the older states of the Confederacy would quickly reach the condition of Virginia and Maryland, The inevitable goal would soon come in sight, and the foreseen necessity of a change would gradually reconcile the minds of the planters to a policy of emancipation. The spirit in which the task would be undertaken when prescribed to them as it were by Nature herself, would, it may fairly be expected, be far different from that with which it would be encountered, if enforced at the bayonet's point by hostile and hated Northerns. Self-interest, no longer overborne by passion or pride, would teach the necessity of calmly considering a position of [350] which the urgency could no longer be concealed or evaded ; and the full knowledge and large experience of the planters might be expected to conduct them to that solution which would be most in accordance with the welfare of the negro and their own. Meanwhile, the policy of emancipation once commenced, its effects would not be confined to the states which adopted it. The working states, deprived of their supply of labour from the North, would be compelled to adopt new maxims of management. The life of the slave would become for his master an object of increased consideration ; his comfort would be more attended to, and his condition would rapidly improve. With the progress of time the destiny of the older states would overtake these also, and thus, by a gradual but sure process, the greatest blot on modern civilization would be expunged from American soil.

[353]

APPENDICES.

APPENDIX A. SOUTHERN TACTICS IN EUROPE. [217]↩

The Richmond Inquirer of December 20th, 1861, contained a document which throws a curious light on some of the causes which have been acting on public opinion in England during the past year. The writer had just returned to the South from a mission to London, in which he had been associated with Messrs. Yancey and Mann, and describes the state in which he found English opinion on American subjects on his arrival here in July, 1861, and the influences brought to bear by himself and his associates upon the members of the London Press, with a view to advancing the Southern cause with the English public. After stating the general expectation which prevailed in the South when he left it in June last, "that the manufacturing necessities of England and France would force them to a speedy recognition and interference with the Federal blockade ;" and "the equally confident impression that the commercial enterprise of England would spring at once to the enjoyment of the high prices the blockade established, by sending forward cargoes of arms, ammunition, medicines, and other stores most needed in the Confederacy ;" and after describing the causes in the public opinion of England which prevented these hopes being realized, the writer proceeds as follows : — "I have thus endeavoured, in this most hurried and imperfect manner, to sketch some of the difficulties which met our commissioners on the very threshold of their mission. That they have addressed themselves [354] to these difficulties with zeal and efficiency will not be doubted by the millions in the South to whom their abilities and character are as familiar as household words. During my stay in London I was frequently at the rooms of Colonel M —, and can thus bear personal testimony to his zeal and efficiency. He seemed to appreciate the necessity of educating the English mind to the proper view of the various difficulties in the way of his progress ; and, with but limited means of effecting his objects, he worked with untiring industry for their accomplishment ; and, as I have also written, a distinguished member of Congress is, I believe, doing all that talent, energy, and a peculiar fitness for his position can accomplish. Without any other aid than his intimate knowledge of English character, and that careful style of procedure which his thorough training as a diplomatist has given him, he has managed to make the acquaintance of most of the distinguished representatives of the London Press, whose powerful batteries thus influenced are brought to bear upon the American question. This of course involves an immense labour, which he stands up to unflinchingly. So much for his zeal. His efficiency, with that of his colleague, is manifested in the recognition of our rights as a belligerent, and in the wonderful revolution in the tone of the English Press. . . . The influence of this lever upon public opinion was manifest during my stay in Paris. When I first went there, there was not a single paper to speak out in our behalf. In a few days, however, three brochures were issued which seemed to take the Parisian Press by storm. One of them was the able and important letter of the Hon. T. Butler King to the Minister ; another, 'The American Revolution Unveiled,' by Judge Pequet, formerly of New Orleans — whose charming and accomplished lady, by the way, is a native of Richmond; and a third, 'The American Question,' by Ernest Bellot des Minières, the agent of the French purchasers of the Virginia canals. These works each in turn created a great deal of attention, and their united effect upon the French mind shows the effective character of this appliance. Messrs. Bellot and Pequet deserve well of the Confederacy for their powerful and voluntary advocacy. I can, and with great pleasure do, bear testimony to the valuable and persevering efforts [355] of Mr. King both in Paris and London. Among the first acquaintances I had the pleasure of making while in London was Mr. Gregory, M.P., to whom I carried letters of introduction from a Virginia gentleman long resident in Paris, who very kindly either introduced or pointed out to me the distinguished members of parliament. He had been, I found, a traveller in Virginia, and inquired after several persons, among whom was Mr. John B. Rutherford, of Goochland. During an hour's walk upon the promenade between the new parliament houses and the Thames, he plied me with questions as to the 'situation' in the Confederacy, and seemed greatly encouraged by my replies ; more so, he said, than at any time since the revolution commenced."

APPENDIX B. SLAVE LABOUR. [218]↩

"I am here shewn tools," says Mr. Olmsted, "that no man in his senses, with us, would allow a labourer, to whom he was paying wages, to be encumbered with; and the excessive weight and clumsiness of which, I would judge, would make work at least ten per cent, greater than with those ordinarily used with us. And I am assured that, in the careless and clumsy way they must be used by the slaves, anything lighter or less rude could not be furnished them with good economy, and that such tools as we constantly give our labourers, and find our profit in giving them, would not last out a day in a Virginia cornfield — much lighter and more free from stones though it be than ours.

"So, too, when I ask why mules are so universally substituted for horses on the farm, the first reason given, and confessedly the most conclusive one, is that horses cannot bear the treatment that they always must get from negroes ; horses are always soon foundered [356] or crippled by them, while mules will bear cudgelling, and lose a meal or two now and then, and not be materially injured, and they do not take cold or get sick, if neglected or overworked. But I do not need to go further than to the window of the room in which I am writing, to see at almost any time, treatment of cattle that would insure the immediate discharge of the driver by almost any farmer owning them in the North." In another State, a Southern farmer describes to him "as a novelty, a plough 'with a sort of wing, like,' on one side, that pushed off and turned over a slice of the ground; from which it appeared that he had, until recently, never seen a mould-board; the common ploughs of this country being constructed on the same principle as those of the Chinese, and only rooting the ground like a hog or a mole — not cleaving and turning." — Seaboard Slave States, pp. 46, 47, 402.

APPENDIX C. FAILURE OF THE SOUTH IN MANUFACTURES. [219]↩

It is not, of course, intended to be maintained that no mechanical or manufacturing industry of any sort is carried on in the Slave States — no society could exist on such terms, though how closely the Southern States approximate to this condition may be seen from the fact, that even for so simple a production as shoes Virginia has been dependent almost exclusively on the North (De Bow's Industrial Resources, vol. ii. p. 130). What I mean to assert is, that the amount of industry of this kind carried on in the South is so small, that in the computation of the national resources it may for practical purposes be disregarded ; and this, notwithstanding the existence of a few factories in some of the Southern towns, Mr. De Bow admits as fully as I have stated it. Indeed, no inconsiderable portion of the four volumes of his Industrial Resources is taken up with lamentations over this very circumstance — the exclusive [257] devotion of the industry of the country to an exhaustive system of agriculture, to the almost entire neglect of manufactures, followed by exhortations to the introduction of the latter. Take, for example, the following passage. Replying to the question, what has become of the industrial profits of the South, the writer says : — "Much of it has been paid to the neighbouring states for provisions, mules, horses, and implements of husbandry ; much has been paid for clothing and other articles of manufacture, all induced by the system of applying all, or nearly all the labour of the country, to the production of one staple only, and by neglecting the encouragement of manufactures. . . . She is yearly wearing out her soil in the production of one great staple, which has become ruinously low in price by reason of its great supply. She parts with this staple at prime cost, and purchases almost all her necessary appliances of comfort from abroad, not at prime cost, but burdened with the profits of merchants, the costs of transportation, duties, commissions, exchange, and numerous other charges, all of which go to support and enrich others at her expense. This is the true reason that she. is growing poorer while the rest of the world is growing rich, for it is easy for the world to enrich itself from such a customer on such terms. If she were wise, she would cease to carry on a traffic in which she always has been and always must be a loser ; she will set up for herself, and instead of parting with the products of all her labour to support the balance of the world, she will manufacture her own clothing, and, not stopping at this, proceed to manufacture the whole of her crop, and thereby draw upon the world for a portion of her former losses." Passages of this kind (and the economic literature of the South abounds with them) throw a curious light on the pretensions of the Southern States to enlightened views in political economy, and show upon what quicksands those persons are building who support the Confederacy in the expectation of its adopting a free commercial policy.

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APPENDIX D. THE 'MEAN WHITES.' [220]↩

A writer in the Saturday Review has denied the existence of any class in the South which answers to the description given in this passage. He denies that even the names, "mean white," "white trash," have any place — out of the negroes' quarters — in the Southern vocabulary ; and he treats the impression which prevails in this country of the existence of such people as an example — to he classed with "the world-famous wife market in Smithfield" — of the delusions to which nations are liable respecting the social condition of other countries. This position the Reviewer seeks to establish, for the most part by strong assertion, but in some degree by an appeal to statistics. His argument from statistics I will examine : his assertions I will give the reader an opportunity of comparing with those of English and American visitors to the Southern States, as well as with the testimony of Southern men of position and character, addressing Southern audiences, and speaking in the presence of the facts which they describe.

And, first, as to the statistical argument — the Saturday Reviewer writes as follows : — "We know from the census that there were in 1850, 1,114,000 free families in the Southern States, and 563,000 farms ; so that more than half the white population is employed in agriculture alone. And agriculture, in its statistical acceptance, does not by any means include all who derive their subsistence directly from the produce of the soil. We see, therefore, that there were of planters and farmers, strictly so-called, 563,000 families, each settled on land of its own, and possessing from fifty to five thousand acres of cleared and uncleared ground."

I must take leave to say that the Reviewer does not know these statements from the census. No such return as the second of those which he quotes is to be found in the census ; but such a return is to be found in a partisan work, lately published by the Hon. James Williams, late American minister in Turkey — "The South Vindicated;" [359] and it is grossly incorrect. The number of farms in the Southern States in 1850, as given in Colton's Atlas, was not 563,000 but 373,106 — that is to say, the Reviewer represents the number of farms in the South as more than one-half greater than it actually is. Assuming, as I suppose I am justified in doing, that the Reviewer's statistics are borrowed from the pages of Mr. Williams, it will be instructive to note the following facts. In the table from which the Reviewer quoted, the number of farms in Maryland is set down at 211,860, while the number in Virginia is set down at 77,013, that in Kentucky at 74,777, and that in Tennessee at 72,735. Now no one, who had the most superficial knowledge of the industrial condition, or even of the geography, of the South, could have looked at these figures, and not have seen that they contained an enormous error. The three chief farming states of the South are Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee ; the smallest of them is three times as large as Maryland ; and yet Maryland is represented as containing nearly as many farms as all these states combined. But, had there been any doubt upon this point, a comparison of this table with one immediately preceding it must have removed it. In a table given in the preceding page the agricultural population of Maryland is set down at 28,588; the number of farms, we have seen, is given at 211,860; whence it would follow, combining these numbers, that every member of the agricultural population of Maryland is on an average master of seven farms and a half ! Such is the avidity with which any statements are swallowed by those who reason to support a foregone conclusion ; and such is the notable conclusion, which this writer, who affects profound disdain for "those who derive their notions of the South from Uncle Tom's Cabin and Mr. Olmsted's Journeys" blindly accepts ! No less unquestionable an authority than the Hon. James Williams in the South Vindicated will satisfy the severe requirements of the Saturday Review.

And now let us observe how this gigantic blunder affects the Reviewer's argument. The purpose of that argument is to dispose of the charge of idleness brought against the bulk of the Southern population by producing proof of the existence of industry in the [360] South sufficient in quantity to provide them with occupation. Thus from his imaginary premises of 563,000 farms, the Reviewer concludes that "there were of planters and farmers, strictly so called, 563,000 families, each settled on land of its own, and possessing from fifty to five thousand acres of cleared and uncleared laud." We have seen, however, that the number of farms, instead of 563,000, was only 373,000 ; and this reduction at once throws on the Reviewer's hands 190,000 families, comprising according to the census proportion 1,092,030 individuals, for whom he has not even attempted to suggest any honest means of livelihood. But the case is in reality much stronger than this. The returns of farms include plantations, and we all know that it is common for a single planter to own several plantations. Nor does the census save us from this source of error ; since Professor De Bow, the superintendent of the census of 1850, expressly informs us that "where the party owns several plantations in different counties or in different states, he will he entered more than once." It follows, then, that the 373,000 farms by no means represent 373,000 families. What the proportion of families to farms may he it is not possible to say with exactness, but we may arrive at it approximately as follows : — The Reviewer assumes (and the assumption is perhaps a fair one) that the owner of five slaves and upwards may be taken to represent the planting, as distinguished from the farming, interest. Adopting this view, and applying it to the census returns of slaveholders, we arrive at 173,022 as the number of planters in the South in 1850. It would probably be not more than a fair allowance for the case of pluralists to say that these 173,022 planters absorbed 200,000 plantations. Deducting these from the aggregate of farms and plantations we obtain 173,000 farms disposable for the remaining population ; and what was its number ? We arrive at this by deducting the number of planters' families from the aggregate number of families in the South.

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We have thus 173,000 farms, properly so called, disposable among a population of 941,665 families. The point to be determined is the number of families to which these may be supposed to have given employment. Of this the census affords us no direct evidence ; but we know that the farming population in the Southern, as in the Northern, States, consists for the most part of peasant proprietors ; the land held by such, as a general rule, not exceeding what a single family is competent to cultivate ; and, secondly that, where the farms exceed this limit, slave labour is obtainable and is much preferred by Southern farmers to such free labour as the country can provide. Under these circumstances it is evident that the class of free farm labourers, who are not members of the farmer's family, must be exceedingly small. It will probably be a liberal estimate if we suppose that each farm, in addition to the farmer's family, gives employment on an average to one-fourth of a family of free labourers. This would bring the whole number of families absorbed by the 173,000 farms to 216,000. And this, I apprehend, represents approximately the position in which in 1850 the case actually stood. These 216,000 families, comprising, according to the census proportion, 1,242,000 individuals, are principally distributed over the Northern portion of the Border states, more especially through western Virginia, Kentucky, and eastern Tennessee; and this portion of the Southern population, as I have intimated in more than one passage in this volume, forms a substantially foreign element in the society of the South, having no affinities with the system in contact with which it finds itself, and being a source of weakness instead of strength to the Slave Power.

Taking now the farming and planting population together, as it stood in 1850, it might, according to the above calculation, be distributed as follows : —

But the total number of families in the South at this time was 1,114,687. Deducting the former from the latter, there remained [362] 725,665 families, which, according to the census proportion, would comprise 4,172, 574 individuals. Here was a vast population existing in the Southern States over and above what the planting and farming industry, on the most liberal computation of its resources, gave employment to. The question is how did this vast population find the means of support ? The Reviewer replies as follows : — "There is a very numerous class employed, at enormous wages, in the internal carrying trade of the South. There is the working population of the cities, also numerous and exceedingly well-paid. There are the traders of every sort — those of the cities and small villages, and those who establish their 'stores' at cross-roads, and supply the farming population of large districts with everything which they consume that cannot be grown on their own farms. None of these classes are poor or degraded ; and these altogether embrace no inconsiderable proportion of the non-agricultural population. Besides or below these, and the class of farmers, comes a numerous body which is not reckoned among the agriculturists. The collection of rosin or turpentine affords employment to thousands ; and the class of backwoodsmen is also large." The answer of the Reviewer, stated generally, amounts to this, that the white population, who are neither planters nor farmers, nor engaged in farming operations, find employment in distributing the produce which the planters and farmers raise. Now I maintain that this is a palpable absurdity. The whole productive population in the Southern States in 1850, including under this head all the plantation slaves, the white farming population with such slaves as they employ, and the small number of whites and blacks engaged in productive operations in the towns, could scarcely have exceeded in all four million persons ; but, assuming them to have numbered five millions, we are asked to believe that the mere business of distributing the products raised by this population would give employment to a population nearly as large. In no considerable country in the world does the population engaged in distributing wealth nearly equal the population engaged in producing it. In Ireland the proportion borne by the former to the latter department of the population was in 1850 about one to three ; but probably nowhere [363] does the distributive population stand in so small a ratio to the productive as in the Southern States ; and this for obvious reasons. In the first place the largest class of consumers in the South is that of negro slaves — a stationary population, without surplus expenditure, whose wants are restricted to a few invariable commodities which are supplied with routine regularity. Again, the magnificent river system of the South affords unparalleled facilities for internal transport, reducing in a proportional degree the quantity of industry required for carrying it on ; [221] and, lastly, a considerable portion of the expenditure of the Southern wealthy class has always taken place in Northern towns. These causes, tending at once to simplify and facilitate the work of distribution, concur to render the proportion which this department of industry bears to that engaged in production greatly smaller in the South than elsewhere ; and I shall therefore probably overstate the case, if I take this proportion as one to four. But assuming this to be the proportion, and assuming that five millions in the South are engaged in production — also I am convinced an exaggeration — a million and a quarter of persons would suffice for the whole business of distribution. But the population available for this purpose was, in 1850, not a million and a quarter, but upwards of four millions. How did the vast remaining population of nearly three millions find employment ?

The truth is, the distributive industry of the South, which has been suggested by the Reviewer as furnishing the means of regular employment to the mass of the white population, and which, as we have just seen, would be altogether insufficient for this purpose, is in reality performed in a very slight degree by the native white people, but mainly by negroes and foreign immigrants, many of the latter being occasional residents, who would not find their place in the census at all. I shall now proceed to adduce some evidence bearing upon this point ; and I shall take the several occupations in the order in which they occur in the passage of the Saturday Review which I have quoted.

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And, first, as to the allegation that "there is a very numerous class employed at enormous wages in the internal carrying trade of the South" — the following passage from Mr. Stirling's Letters from the Slave States throws some light upon this as well as upon some others of the Reviewer's suggestions. "On the Georgian railway Irish labourers were lately employed ; now they have slaves. The American railway officials prefer the latter, but only, I suspect, because Irishmen refuse to be driven. On the Mississippi and Alabama rivers Irish and negroes are employed indiscriminately. On the St. John's only slaves are employed ; few or no Irish go so far South. The captain of the Charleston steamer told me he paid eighteen dollars per month for slaves, and sixteen and seventeen for Irish ; but he prefers the former, 'for,' said he, naively, 'if an Irishman misbehaves, I can only send him ashore.' The alternative in the case of the nigger was 'understood.' Then, as to waiters, — at the St. Charles Hotel, New Orleans, they were all Irish ; at the Pulaski House, Savannah, they are all slaves ; at the Charleston Hotel, Charleston, they are partly Irish and partly slaves." [222] And to precisely the same effect is the testimony of Mr. Russell of Kilwhiss : — "I got on board a steamer at Natchez for New Orleans, this afternoon, and found it full of passengers, and the accommodation as good as in the one in which I had ascended the river. Calls at diiferent plantations were frequently made to take in cotton and sugar. As many as forty labourers, one half Irishmen, the other half negroes, are kept on board to save time in taking in the produce of the plantations." We have here no mention of white natives : the only workmen spoken of are Irish and negroes. It is quite possible indeed that the 'mean white' may do an occasional job in this way ; and Mr. Olmsted tells us that this is the case in some parts of Virginia, in one district of which he says "they mostly follow boating — hiring as hands on the bateaus that navigate the small streams and canals, but never for a longer term at once than a single trip of a boat, whether that might be long or short. At the end of the trip they were paid by the day," [223] Are these the [365] people that the planters and their agents would be likely to trust to as the main resource for conducting the internal carrying trade of the South ?

Again, we are told "there is the working population of the cities also numerous and exceedingly well-paid. There are traders of every sort," &c. Now, in the first place, the white city population of the South, if we exclude a few towns such as Baltimore and St. Louis, which are on the borders of the Free States, and owe their prosperity far more to Northern than to Southern influences, is by no means large ; and secondly that portion of the city population to which the South is indebted for such urban industry and enterprise as it possesses is principally of foreign origin. "Of those Southern towns which I have named," says Mr. Trollope [new orleans, charleston, savannah, mobile, richmond and memphis] the commercial wealth is of Northern creation. The success of New Orleans as a city can be no more attributed to the Louisianians than can that of the Havana to the men of Cuba, or of Calcutta to the natives of India." [224] But the following account from a Southern journal, the New Orleans Commercial Bulletin, respecting the founding of a Southern town, will perhaps convey a better idea than any general statements how little the prosperity, such as it is, of Southern towns owes to the industry or enterprise of the inhabitants of the South. The description refers to the laying out of the new town of Brashear on Berwick Bay, on the route between New Orleans and Galveston. "No more favourable site," says the Bulletin, "could have been selected for a town, which in a few years may become a flourishing city. ….Nearly the whole of this property has been sold to mechanics, artizans, and storekeepers …A feature or two in this sale is worthy of notice. The purchasers, with a few exceptions, not exceeding five or six, are naturalized citizens, principally Germans, with some Spaniards and Frenchmen, and a few Irish." [225] On which Mr. Weston, from whom I have borrowed the quotation, remarks — "These 'mechanics, [366] artizans, and storekeepers,' who 'appreciated' the advantages of Brashear, and who had the means wherewithal to buy and pay for lots in it, were, it seems, scarcely any of them native white citizens of Louisiana. At that point, so remote from the free States, it is not easy to see of what materials the new town could have been constituted, but for the fortunate presence of Europeans, 'principally Germans,' who stood ready, with well-filled pockets and skilful hands, to lay the foundations of a 'flourishing city.'" [226]

But, lastly, "the collection of rosin and turpentine affords employment to thousands." It may he true that a small number of the white people find in a few localities a desultory occupation in this way ; but it is certain that the bulk of the industry in the pine forests is carried on by negroes. In a detailed account, extending over ten pages, given by Mr. Olmsted of the process of collecting turpentine and rosin in North Carolina, [227] the only workmen spoken of are negroes. Of the poor whites he gives the following description : — "The negroes are decidedly superior in every moral and intellectual respect to the great mass of the white people inhabiting the turpentine forest. Among the latter there is a large number, I should think a majority, of entirely uneducated, poverty-stricken vagabonds. I mean by vagabonds, simply, people without habitual, definite occupation or reliable means of livelihood. They are poor, having almost no property but their own bodies ; and the use of these, that is, their labour, they are not accustomed to hire out statedly and regularly, so as to obtain capital by wages, but only occasionally by the day or job, when driven to it by necessity. A family of these people will commonly hire, or 'squat' and build, a little log cabin, so made that it is only a shelter from rain, the sides not being chinked, and having no more furniture or pretension to comfort than is commonly provided for a criminal in the cell of a prison. They will cultivate a little corn, and possibly a few roods of potatoes, cow-peas and coleworts. They will own a few swine, that find their living in the forest ; and pretty certainly, also, a rifle [367] and dogs ; and the men, ostensibly, occupy most of their time in hunting." [228]

But lastly, "the class of backwoodsmen is large." And "here at least" the Reviewer admits that an untravelled visitor "might be excused for supposing that he had found that 'mean white' species which is supposed to be a growth of slave soil peculiar to the South ;" but here again he would be mistaken. Backwoodsmen, we are reminded, are to be found also in the North. There is, however, the Reviewer admits, a difference between the two cases, "owing," as he tells us, "to the different character of Northern and Southern cultivation, and the different laws of their progress. In the North, civilization advances evenly, like the wave of a tide slowly but continually gaining on the western shore. In the South it has overflowed the land like an inundation, taking possession of those soils which suited it, and leaving an island of wilderness here and there in the midst of a settled and busy people. And the wilderness forms a great part of the country, abounding even in the oldest and richest states. Alabama is the only state in which the acreage of 'unimproved' farm land is not at least double that of 'improved ;' and improved and unimproved together amount to only a little more than one-fifth of the whole area of the Southern States, [229] Everywhere there may be found forests abounding in game, and presenting all the facilities and temptations of savage life. Within twenty miles of Mobile, you may meet with herds of deer ; and so generally is this the case, that in most parts of the South venison is cheaper than beef. Nowhere is it an unheard-of thing for a villager to shoot a wild turkey in his own barnyard. Everywhere— in the midst of cultivation, and in the neighbourhood of cities — may be found the backwoods and the backwoodsman."

I think it must be admitted that the field provided by the [368 ] Reviewer for his backwoodsmen is a sufficiently spacious one ; and that it is therefore not without reason he has told us that "the class of backwoodsmen is large." He speaks indeed of "civilization overflowing" the South like an "inundation," "leaving an island of wilderness here and there in the midst of a busy and settled people ; "but from his subsequent description, it seems plain that his metaphor has by some accident been inverted, and that it is the wilderness which should represent the "inundation," and civilization the occasional "island ;'' for he tells us that of what is in the census called "land in farms" in the South not one-third is "improved," while "improved and unimproved together amount to only one-fifth of the area of the Southern States." There can therefore be no doubt that the backwoodsmen of the South are furnished with an ample range. Now, no one has ever ventured to say that there is anything corresponding to this in the Northern States. It is only, according to the Reviewer's own account, on the extreme margin of the advancing tide of civilization that there is any place for the species, which is, consequently, in the Northern States numerically insignificant. But there is another difference between the Northern and Southern backwoodsmen, which the Reviewer has failed to point out, but which is nevertheless pertinent to our inquiry. The backwoodsman of the Northern States performs for the society to which he belongs a really useful, nay an indispensable office. He is the pioneer of progress. Without his assistance the expanding wave of civilization would be arrested. Will the Reviewer inform us what social ends are served by the Southern backwoodsman ?

We see, then, that in the functions which they perform, no less than in number, the Northern and the Southern species stand upon a different footing. The backwoodsman of the North represents an insignificant fraction of the whole population existing on the outskirts of civilization, where he discharges a task indispensable to Northern society : the backwoodsman of the South exists over the whole area of the Southern States, discharges no useful office, but preys upon the wealth which surrounds him. Is it true, as the Reviewer asserts, that these two men "represent precisely the same [369] variety of the human race" ? The following descriptions of the two classes, proceed, I think it will not he denied, from competent hands : —

"Florida is the Paradise of an idle man. Shooting and fishing will easily supply him with food ; and, if he wishes to he very luxurious, "by scratching the ground he may have a few sweet potatoes, or a little Indian corn. Land has been "bought in Florida at a cent per acre ; but for that matter our 'cracker' need not "buy land at all — he may squat, and take his chance of being turned out. It is not every one who would wish to dispossess a 'cracker' so long as the 'cracker' had his rifle and an ounce of lead. Having thus established himself on land of his own, or a patch of Uncle Sam's, he may also, if he pleases, become a grazier at small expense of labour or money. Having "bought, borrowed, or stolen a few head of cattle, he simply marks them, and turns them out into the woods. In the spring he collects the calves, and puts his brand upon them ; and this, absolutely, is all the care or trouble he takes, except catching them when a purchaser appears. In this way some of these Florida squatters accumulate vast herds of cattle, without any exertion on their part. Nay, so lazy and careless of comfort are they, that I am assured there are men in these forests, owning 5,000 or 6,000 head of cattle, who have not even milk to their coffee ; 'and that,' said Captain B— , 'I call pretty damned shiftless.'

"This easy, lazy, good-for-nothing kind of life is very common among all the 'poor whites' of the seaboard slave states, but it seems to have reached its climax in Florida. Here the plentiness of game and cheapness of land attract many idlers from the neighbouring states ; and many a man squats in Florida who has made other states too hot to hold him. Florida is the Alsatia of the Union." [230]

So much for the Southern backwoodsman : now for his analogue in the North : —

"The primary settler, therefore, who, however, will not usually have been the primary owner, — goes to work upon his land amidst [370] all the wildness of nature. He levels and burns the first trees, and raises his first crop of corn amidst stumps still standing four or five feet above the soil ; but he does not do so till some mode of conveyance has been found for him. So much I have said hoping to explain the mode in which the frontier speculator paves the way for the frontier agriculturist. But the permanent farmer generally comes on the land as the third owner. The first settler is a rough fellow, and seems to be so wedded to his rough life, that he leaves his land after his first wild work is done, and goes again further off to some untouched allotment. He finds that he can sell his improvements at a profitable rate, and takes the price. He is a preparer of farms rather than a farmer. He has no love for the soil which his hand has first turned. He regards it merely as an investment ; and when things about him are beginning to wear an aspect of comfort, — when his property has become valuable, he sells it, packs up his wife and his little ones, and goes again into the woods. The western American has no love for his own soil, or his own house. The matter with him is simply one of dollars. To keep a farm which he could sell at an advantage from any feeling of affection, — from what we should call an association of ideas, — would be to him as ridiculous as the keeping of a family pig would be in an English farmer's establishment. The pig is a part of the farmer's stock in trade, and must go the way of all pigs. And so it is with house and land in the life of the frontier man in the western states.

"But yet this man has his romance, his high poetic feeling, and above all his manly dignity. Visit him, and you will find him without coat or waistcoat, unshorn, in ragged blue trousers and old flannel shirt, too often bearing on his lantern jaws the signs of ague and sickness ; but he will stand upright before you and speak to you with all the ease of a lettered gentleman in his own library. All the odious incivility of the republican servant has been banished. He is his own master, standing on his own threshold, and finds no need to assert his equality by rudeness. He is delighted to see you, and bids you sit down on his battered bench without dreaming of any such apology as an English cottier offers to a Lady [371] Bountiful when she calls. He has worked out his independence, and shows it in every easy movement of his body. He tells you of it unconsciously in every tone of his voice. You will always find in his cabin some newspaper, some book, some token of advance in education. When he questions you about the old country he astonishes you by the extent of his knowledge. I defy you not to feel that he is superior to the race from which he has sprung in England or in Ireland. To me I confess that the manliness of such a man is very charming. He is dirty and perhaps squalid. His children are sick, and he is without comforts. His wife is pale, and you think you see shortness of life written in the faces of all the family. But over and above it all there is an independence which sits gracefully on their shoulders, and teaches you at the first glance that the man has a right to assume himself to be your equal." [231]

The reader may look on this picture and on that. If these two men "represent precisely the same variety of the human race," it must be allowed that the limits within which a variety may vary without losing its identity are tolerably extensive.

I have now examined in turn the several modes of industry which have been suggested as possible means of employment for the five millions and a half of population in the South, whose pursuits are unascertained, and I submit that the assumptions of the Reviewer are utterly overthrown by the evidence which has been adduced. The whole distributive industry of the South would not suffice to absorb more than one-fourth of the available population ; and we find that, in point of fact, the white natives of the South take little part in it. The internal carrying trade is conducted principally by negroes and Irish immigrants ; three-fourths of the commerce of the country are in the hands of foreigners ; in their hands also are most of the mechanical and other trades of the cities ; and the work of the pine forests is performed, at all events principally, by negroes. On the other hand, it is admitted that four-fifths of the whole Southern country are little better than wilderness, and offer strong attractions to those whose tastes lead them towards a wild life. These facts alone, even in the absence of all positive evidence as to the character [372] and pursuits of the bulk of the Southern people, would go far, I think, to justify the popular impression which the Reviewer treats with such scorn ; but, in truth, the case does not rest upon presumptive grounds. We have the most distinct and unequivocal testimony, both from Southerns themselves, and from impartial English writers, as to the point in question ; and this testimony, of which I shall now adduce some specimens, is, I submit, fully adequate to sustain the description of the Southern population which I have given in the text.

In a paper read before the South Carolina Institute in 1851 by Mr. William Gregg, the following passages occur : —

"From the best estimates which I have been able to make I put down the white people, who ought to work, and who do not, or who are so employed as to be wholly unproductive to the state, at one hundred and twenty-five thousand. . . . The appropriation annually made by our legislature for our school fund everyone must be aware, so far as the country is concerned, has been little better than a waste of money. . . . While we are aware that the Northern and Eastern states find no difficulty in educating their poor, we are ready to despair of success in this matter, for even penal laws against the neglect of education would fail to bring many of our country people to send their children to school. . . . Any man who is an observer of things could hardly pass our country without being struck with the fact that all the capital, enterprise, and intelligence is employed in directing slave labour ; and the consequence is that a large proportion of our poor white people are wholly neglected, and are suffered to while away an existence in a state but one step in advance of the Indian of the forest. It is an evil of vast magnitude." The whole population of South Carolina, by the census of 1850, numbered 274,563 persons; and of these Mr. Gregg tells us that there are 125,000 "who ought to work and do not," whose condition is "but one step in advance of the Indian of the forest." Now 125,000 persons are not far from half of the whole population of the State : they would probably be three-fourths of the population who are capable of working.

Again, in a paper advocating the introduction of "domestic manufactures in the South and West," published by Mr. Tarver of [373] Missouri, I find the following : — "The free population of the South may be divided into two classes — the slaveholder and the non-slaveholder. I am not aware that the relative numbers of these two classes have ever been ascertained in any of the states, but I am satisfied that the non-slaveholders far outnumber the slaveholders — perhaps by three to one. In the more southern portion of this region, the non-slaveholders possess, generally, but very small means, and the land which they possess is almost universally poor, and so sterile that a scanty subsistence is all that can be derived from its cultivation ; and the more fertile soil, being in the possession of the slaveholder, must ever remain out of the power of those who have none. This state of things is a great drawback, and bears heavily upon and depresses the moral energies of the poorer classes. . . . The acquisition of a respectable position in the scale of wealth appears so difficult, that they decline the hopeless pursuit, and many of them settle down into habits of idleness, and become the almost passive subjects of all its consequences. And I lament to say that I have observed of late years that an evident deterioration is taking place in this part of the population, the younger portion of it being less educated, less industrious, and in every point of view less respectable than their ancestors. ... To the slaveholding class of the population of the south-west, the introduction of manufactures is not less interesting than to the non-slaveholding class. The former possess almost all the wealth of the country." In a paper written with the same view by the Hon. J. H. Lumpkin of Georgia, we find the following description of the whites of that State : — "It is objected that these manufacturing establishments will become the hot-beds of crime. . . . But I am by no means ready to concede that our poor, degraded, half-fed, half-clothed, and ignorant population — without Sabbath schools or any other kind of instruction, mental or moral — will be injured by giving them employment, which will bring them under the oversight of employers, who will inspire them with self-respect by taking an interest in their welfare."

I shall conclude these quotations by the following from an English writer of unimpeachable authority : — "The white inhabitants of Florida, as of all the Slave States more or less, constitute but two classes — the planters or rich class, and the poor class, variously [374] denominated 'crackers,' 'white trash,''poor whites,' mean whites.' . . . This social characteristic I consider the most remarkable and important feature of Southern civilization. It is only by keeping this clearly and constantly in mind, that we can at all understand the social and political organization of the South ; and only thus can we duly appreciate the amazing difference between Northern and Southern development. The essence of Northern, as of English civilization, is the progressiveness of the labouring class, and the consequent rapid rise of an easy, affluent, well-educated, and law-abiding class, recruited from day to day, and from hour to hour, from the ranks of the lower class ; the individuals raised being, from the nature of things, those most remarkable for energy, foresight, and self-reliance. Where men of industry, integrity, and intelligence can easily rise to a condition of independence, a nation is in a good condition, even though the improvident and sinful find their deserved portion of misery. On the contrary, where the labouring class forms a stereotyped, unprogressive caste, stagnation is the necessary characteristic of the community. The richer class may accumulate wealth, but there can be no dissemination of comfortable existence, no healthy growth of an independent, self-made, self-reliant class. Society is divided into a wealthy dominant class, and a wretched, ignorant class, at once insubordinate and servile. Such is essentially the social condition of the Slave States of this Union ; and the cause obviously is the discouragement thrown over free labour by the institution of slavery. The white poor man disdains to 'work like a nigger;' he tries, instead, to live by his rifle or his fishing-rod. If these fail, he plants a few sweet potatoes, or loafs about the town, doing odd jobs which have not the restraint of regular labour. He hates a trade ; he will not be a smith or a carpenter, to compete with his rich neighbour's slaves, and probably be beaten by them. How, then, can such a man rise ? How can he ever escape from his dependent and degraded position ? How shall a man become a capitalist who will not first be a labourer ? This is the secret of the 'white trash' of the Southern States. Hence the political rowdyism of slave communities, where an ignorant and idle mob, accustomed to the use of deadly weapons, is [375] constantly prowling about the country, and congregating in the cities. Hence, too, the want of material progress : there is neither efficient labour nor abundant capital. The very elements of civilization are wanting." [232]

It would be easy to multiply these quotations, but the reader will probably consider what I have given to be sufficient. I must, however, make one short quotation more. The Saturday Reviewer, not content with questioning my general description, affects to sneer at my language. He quotes as absurd my statement that the "'mean white' ekes out a wretched subsistence by hunting, by fishing, by hiring himself out for occasional jobs, by plunder." The Reviewer, in his entire ignorance of Southern literature, is not aware that these words are not mine, but those of Southern as well as Northern writers, and that it is owing to their triteness alone that they have not been placed in quotation marks. For example, Governor Hammond of South Carolina thus describes the same class.: — "They obtain a precarious subsistence by occasional jobs by hunting, by fishing, by plundering fields or folds, and too often by what is in its effects far worse — trading with slaves, and seducing them to plunder for their benefit." [233] The reader can now judge if my picture has been overcharged.

But what is the probable number of this "mean white" population of the Southern States ? It is from the nature of the case impossible to ascertain this with any degree of precision. In the first edition of this work I set it down at five millions. I think it possible that this may be an over-statement. The proportion of these people to the whole population has been stated by several trustworthy writers as about seven-tenths ; and, after a careful examination of the subject, I am inclined to think that this is about the true proportion ; but, in applying it, we must confine the aggregate with which we compare the "white trash" to slave society strictly so called. In writing the passage as it stood in the first edition, I did not sufficiently attend to — what, however, I had [376] distinctly pointed out in other passages — the considerable foreign element of free society existing in the Southern States. Deducting this element, and taking the "white trash" as constituting seven-tenths of the remainder, we should arrive at somewhat over four millions as the probable number of these people at the present time. [234] I have therefore in the present edition set down the number at this sum. I need scarcely say that the change does not in the least degree affect the general argument of my work. Four millions of people, such as we know the "mean whites" to be, existing in a community of which the aggregate (excluding, as I have just explained, that portion which is properly foreign) does not exceed six millions, must form a sufficiently formidable element of mischief.

APPENDIX E. THE SLAVE ARISTOCRACY IN BRAZIL.[235]↩

A precisely similar phenomenon — such, to borrow the words of M. Elisée Reclus, is the "étroite solidarite" du mal" — is presented by Brazil : — "Au milieu de tous ses satellites, le propridtaire feudal, qui du reste a le plus souvent titre de comte ou de baron et possede toute l'autorite politique et judiciaire, est en rdalite roi dans son domaine ; il a ses vassaux et ne reconnait pour suzerains que l'empereur et le congres de Eio-Janeiro, compost pour la plus grande part de planteurs comme lui. La non-existence du majorat et la constitution si libdrale du Brdsil ne peuvent rien contre cette f£odalité [377] territoriale que la nature nienie des choses a fait naitre, et qui devient chaque jour plus puissante, car, dans tous les pays ou il existe, l'esclavage est le fait primordial et cree une society qui lui ressemble. C'est ainsi qu'aux Etats-Unis des institutions bien plus democratiques encore que celles de F empire brdsilien n'ont pas empeche" la formation d'une oligarchic de planteurs qui a fini par mener la republique aux abinies."

APPENDIX F. INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION IN VIRGINIA.[236]↩

The progress of this movement is thus described by the Southern Planter : — "Every farm was greatly impoverished — almost every estate was seriously impaired — and some were involved in debt to nearly their value. Most of the proprietors had died, leaving families in reduced circumstances, and in some cases in great straits. No farm whether of a rich or a poor proprietor had escaped great exhaustion, and no property great dilapidation, unless because the proprietor had at first been too poor to join in the former expensive habits of his wealthier neighbours. There was nothing left to waste, but time and labour ; and these continued to be wasted in the now fruitless efforts to cultivate to profit, or to replace the fertility of soil which had been destroyed. Luxury and expense had been greatly lessened, But on that account the universal prostration was even the more apparent. Many mansions were falling into decay. Few received any but trivial and indispensable repairs. No new mansion was erected, and rarely any other farm-building of value. There was still generally prevailing idleness among proprietors ; and also an abandonment of hope, which made every one desirous to sell his land and move to the fertile and far West, and a general emigration and dispersion was only prevented by the impossibility of finding purchasers for the lands, even at half the then low estimate of [378] market prices." The consequences are further described by Mr. Olmsted : — "Notwithstanding a constant emigration of the decayed families, and of the more enterprising of the poor, the population steadily augmented. ... If the apparent wealth of the country was not increasing, the foundation of a greater material prosperity was being laid in the increase of the number of small but intelligent proprietors, and in the constantly growing necessity to abandon tobacco, and substitute grains, or varied crops, as the staple productions of the country. The very circumstance that reduced the old pseudo-wealthy proprietors was favourable to this change, and to the application of intelligence to a more profitable disposal of the remaining elements of wealth in the land. While multitudes abandoned their ancestral acres in despair, or were driven from them by the recoil of their fathers' inconsiderate expenditures they were taken possession of by 'new men,' endowed with more hopefulness and energy if not more intelligence than the old." — Seaboard Slave States, pp. 274-276.

APPENDIX G. COMPETITION OF FREE AND SLAVE LABOUR IN THE SOUTH. [237]↩

A writer in the Saturday Review (Nov. 2, 1861), in noticing a work of Mr. Olmsted's, reasons as follows : — "It would be hasty to infer, as a great many philanthropists have done, that free labour would answer better than slave labour in the South. The Southern planters are keen enough speculators to have discovered the fact if it were true. In reality the experiment has been tried and resulted in favour of slave labour." The experiment no doubt has been tried, and with the result alleged ; but how far the experiment, as it has been conducted, is conclusive, the reader will be enabled to judge when he reads the following passage from Mr. Olmsted, in a review of one of whose works the above argument occurred : — "The [379] labourer, who in New York gave a certain amount of labour for his wages in a day, soon finds in Virginia that the ordinary measure of labour is smaller than in New York : a 'day's work' or a month's does not mean the same that it did in New York. He naturally adapts his wares to the market. . . . The labourer, finding that the capitalists of Virginia are accustomed to pay for a poor article at a high price, prefers to furnish them with the poor article at their usual price, rather than a better article, unless at a more than correspondingly better price. . . . Now let the white labourer come here from the North or from Europe — his nature demands a social life — shall he associate with the poor, slavish, degraded negro, with whom labour and punishment are almost synonymous ? or shall he be the friend and companion of the white man ? . . . Associating with either or both, is it not inevitable that he will be rapidly demoralized — that he will soon learn to hate labour, give as little of it for his hire as he can, become base, cowardly, faithless, — 'worse than a nigger' ?" The case is simple. The moral atmosphere generated by slavery in the South corrupts the free labourer, whether native or imported : thus corrupted, he fails in competition with the slave ; but does it follow from this that, if slavery no longer existed, free labour would be less efficient in the South than slave labour is at present ? For that is the point.

APPENDIX H. POPULAR EDUCATION IN VIRGINIA.[238]↩

The following extract is from a review of Howison's History of Virginia, published in De Bow's Industrial Resources, &c., vol. iii. p. 460 : — "Before drawing our article to a conclusion, we will give a few extracts from the work of Mr. Howison, which we have had under review. He writes with good sense and much candour, which we admire ; but we must beg leave to differ with him in the matter [380] of slavery — to which he seems mainly to attribute the decline, and perhaps the extinction of his native state. We coincide with him entirely in the importance of a more thorough system of education. He says : — 'It is with pain we are compelled to speak of the horrible cloud of ignorance that rests upon Virginia. In the eastern section there are 29,863, and in the western, 28,924 — making a total of 58,787 white persons, over 20 years of age, who cannot read or write. This, however, is not all. It is computed that there are in the state 166,000 children, between 7 and 16 years of age, and therefore fit for school. Of these, about 28,000 poor children attend the Free and Lancasterian schools an average of twelve weeks in the year for each child. 12,000 more children are sent to colleges, academies, and classical schools. The remaining 126,000 attend no school at all, except what can be imparted by poor and ignorant parents !

" 'This deplorable condition has been long felt and deplored by Virginia's most virtuous sons. Efforts have been made to ameliorate it. Education conventions have assembled, and many animated debates have taken place. The legislature has moved from time to time, and during the session of 1845-6 its movement was decided and beneficial. Nevertheless, the evil remains almost untouched. We pretend not to suggest any remedy. But it will be pertinent to the subject to add, that in the whole State of Massachusetts — containing, in 1840, 737,699 persons, there were but 4,448 white persons, over 20 years of age, who could neither read nor write.' "

APPENDIX I. MR. STIRLING'S ARGUMENT FOR THE EXTINCTION OF SLAVERY THROUGH ECONOMIC CAUSES. [239]↩

Mr. Stirling relies upon the following considerations as containing the solution of the problem. "Within the last ten or fifteen [381] years the value of slaves has risen fifty per cent, at least. During the same time the price of bacon has risen 100 to 200 per cent. Let this process only be continued for ten years longer, and where will be the profits of the cotton-planter ? And here we may perhaps find the long-looked-for solution of the nigger question. When slave labour becomes unprofitable, the slave will be emancipated. South Carolina herself will turn abolitionist when slavery ceases to pay. When she finds that a brutalized race cannot and will not give as much efficient labour for the money as a hired class of superior workers, it is possible that she may lay aside the cowhide, and offer wages to her niggers." — Letters from Slave States, pp. 182, 183. The argument is palpably fallacious. It is the same as if one were to argue that the high rent of land must ultimately destroy agriculture. In each case the high price of the natural agent — land or slaves — results from the comparative profitableness of capital invested in the employment of one or the other. When the high price of land leads landlords to throw up their estates, an analogous course of conduct may be expected from slaveholders from an analogous inducement. The high price of the slave's food is scarcely to the point, since this must tell also against the free labourer ; at all events, so long as the slave fetches any price, it is a proof that he is considered to be worth at least more than his keep.

APPENDIX J. ECONOMIC STRENGTH OF SLAVERY. [240]↩

"So long," says Mr. Merivale, "as there is new soil to break up so long the continuance of slavery is secured ; because workmen must be had at all hazards, and it is more profitable to cultivate a fresh soil by the dear labour of slaves, than an exhausted one by the cheap labour of freemen. It is secured, I mean, so far as the immediate interests of the masters can prevail in maintaining it. [382] . . . It seems but too evident [assuming that there is 'new soil to break up'] that no economical cause can be assigned on which we may rely for the extinction of slavery, and that those who have persuaded themselves that nations will gradually attain a conviction that its maintenance is unfavourable to their interests are under a delusion." — Colonization and the Colonies, pp. 307-309. New edition.

"Until the institution of slavery," says one of the most accurate observers of the economical phenomena of North America, "be weakened, as it was in Europe, by the redundancy of the predial population, I have as little hope of slavery relaxing its grasp in the United States for many years to come as of people denying themselves the luxuries of cotton, sugar, and tobacco. I have failed to discover a single element in active operation which points to a different conclusion." — Russell's North America, p. 293.

Nor does M. Elisée Reclus, judging the question from the experience of Brazil, regard the case as more hopeful. "Certains optimistes ont encore la naivete" de croire que la servitude involontaire finira par s'éteindre d'elle-meme au Bresil. Le mal ne meurt pas ainsi : sa nature est d'empirer sans cesse, de gagner de proche en proche, de corrompre tout ce qui l'entoure, et de disparaitre seulement a la suite d'une crise violente oil toutes les forces vitales se reunissent pour l'expulser."

APPENDIX K. SPIRIT OF THE SLAVE LAWS. [241]↩

It is true that, "the wilful, malicious, and premeditated" killing of a slave is now by law a capital offence in all the Slave States; but, putting aside the difficulty, which often amounts to an impossibility, of establishing the facts, owing to the exclusion of the evidence of coloured persons, what is a "wilful, malicious, and premeditated [383] killing ?" We may infer at least what it is not from the provisos added to most of the statutes which legislate for the crime. Thus the statute of Tennessee subjoins the proviso : — "provided this act shall not he extended to any person killing any slave in the act of resistance to his lawful owner or master, or any slave dying under moderate correction" ; and that of Georgia, the following: — "unless such death should happen by accident in giving such slave moderate correction!' If the reader would appreciate the spirit which pervades the Black Code of the South, let him reflect on the contrast afforded by the following laws of South Carolina. By an act of 1754, it is made a capital felony, without benefit of clergy, "to inveigle, steal, and carry away, or to hire, aid or counsel any person or persons to inveigle, steal or carry away any slave or slaves, or to aid any slave in running away, or departing from his master's or employer's service." "This law," says the Hon. J. O'Neil, "has remained ever since unchanged, and has been sternly enforced as a most valuable safeguard to property." On the other hand, by the 37th section of the act of 1740 — also still in force — it is provided that "if any person shall wilfully cut out the tongue, put out the eye, castrate, or cruelly scald, burn, or deprive any slave of any limb or member, or shall inflict any other cruel punishment, other than by whipping, or beating with a horse-whip, cow-skin, switch or small stick, or by putting irons on or confining or imprisoning such slave, every such person shall for every such offence forfeit the sum of £100 current money, equal to 61 dollars, 23 cents," or £14 13s. 4d. sterling. Thus, while for performing a simple act of humanity — the rendering of assistance to an unfortunate creature seeking to escape from his tormentors — the law awards the punishment of death, it gives, on the other hand, its direct sanction to the act of beating without limit a fellow creature with a horse-whip or cowskin, and the infliction of any torture which the ingenuity or malignity of man may invent, in the application of irons to the human body, or, if the master wills it, the perpetual incarceration of the slave ; and, in case this does not satisfy the master's propensity for cruelty, it provides that he may indulge it still further to almost any conceivable extent at the low cost of £14 13 s. 4d.; this sum to [384] be enforced in the rare case in which the act would be performed in the presence of a white man who is willing to give evidence against the criminal, otherwise the act to receive absolute impunity.

I subjoin the celebrated judgment of Judge Ruffin of North Carolina, which sets the legal position of slavery in the South in a clearer light than any other statement I have met with.

"The defendant was indicted for an assault and battery upon Lydia, the slave of one Elizabeth Jones. On the trial it appeared, that the defendant had hired the slave for a year ; that during the term the slave had committed some small offence, for which the defendant undertook to chastise her ; that while in the act of so doing, the slave ran off; whereupon the defendant called upon her to stop, which being refused, he shot at and wounded her. The judge in the court below charged the jury, that if they believed the punishment inflicted by the defendant was cruel and unwarrantable, and disproportionate to the offence committed by the slave, that in law the defendant was guilty, as he had only a special property in the slave. A verdict was returned for the slave, and the defendant appealed.

Ruffin, J. A judge cannot but lament, when such cases as the present are brought into judgment. It is impossible that the reasons on which they go can be appreciated but where institutions similar to our own exist, and are thoroughly understood. The struggle, too, in the judge's own breast between the feelings of the man and the duty of the magistrate is a severe one, presenting strong temptation to put aside such questions, if it be possible. It is useless, however, to complain of things inherent in our political state. And it is criminal in a court to avoid any responsibility which the laws impose. With whatever reluctance, therefore, it is done, the court is compelled to express an opinion upon the extent of the dominion of the master over the slave in North Carolina. . . The question before the court has indeed been assimilated at the bar to the other domestic relations ; and arguments drawn from the well-established principles which confer and restrain the authority of the parent over the child, the tutor over the pupil, the master over the apprentice, have been pressed on us. The court does not [385] recognise their application. There is no likeness between the cases. They are in opposition to each other, and there is an impassable gulf between them. The difference is, that which exists between freedom and slavery — and a greater cannot be imagined. In the one, the end in view is the happiness of the youth, born to equal rights with that governor, on whom the duty devolves of training the young to usefulness in a station which he is afterwards to assume among freemen. To such an end, and with such a subject, moral and intellectual instruction seem the natural means ; and for the most part they are found to suffice. Moderate force is superadded, only to make the others effectual. If that fail, it is better to leave the party to his own headstrong passions, and the ultimate correction of the law, than to allow it to be immoderately inflicted by a private person. With slavery it is far otherwise. The end is the profit of the master, his security, and the public safety ; the subject, one doomed in his own person and his posterity to live without knowledge, and without the capacity to make any thing his own, and to toil that another may reap the fruits. What moral considerations shall be addressed to such a being, to convince him what it is impossible but that the most stupid must feel and know can never be true, — that he is thus to labour upon a principle of natural duty, or for the sake of his own personal happiness ; such services can only be expected from one who has no will of his own, who surrenders his will in implicit obedience to that of another. Such obedience is the consequence only of uncontrolled authority over the body. There is nothing else which can operate to produce the effect. The power of the master must be absolute, to render the submission of the slave perfect. I must freely confess my sense of the harshness of this proposition. I feel it as deeply as any man can. And as a principle of moral right, every person in his retirement must repudiate it. But in the actual condition of things it must be so. There is no remedy. This discipline belongs to the state of slavery. They cannot be disunited, without abrogating at once the rights of the master, and absolving the slave from his subjection. It constitutes the curse of slavery to both the bond and the free portions of our population. But it is inherent in the relation of master and slave. [386] That there may be particular instances of cruelty and deliberate barbarity, where in conscience the law might properly interfere, is most probable. The difficulty is to determine, where a court may properly begin. Merely in the abstract it may well be asked, which power of the master accords with right. The answer will probably sweep away all of them. But we cannot look at the matter in that light. The truth is, that we are forbidden to enter upon a train of general reasoning on the subject. We cannot allow the right of the master to be brought into discussion in the courts of justice. The slave, to remain a slave, must be made sensible that there is no appeal from his master ; that his person is in no instance usurped, but is conferred by the laws of man at least, if not by the law of God. . . "Judgment below reversed ; and judgment entered for the defendant."— Wheeler's Practical Treatise on the Law of Slavery, pp. 244-8.

APPENDIX L. RECENT IMPORTATION OF AFRICAN SLAVES INTO THE SOUTH. [242]↩

In the Saturday Review (Oct. 18, 1862, p. 471) it is asserted that "not one hundred Africans have, since 1808, been landed on the Southern coast." The following evidence, which I extract from the Reports of the American Anti-Slavery Society, will enable the reader to form an opinion on the accuracy of this statement : —

"About the first of December last, the yacht Wanderer, (which, after a temporary detention in New York, last June, on suspicion of being destined for the Slave Trade, was released, for want of proof satisfactory to the cautious authorities), came in from the African coast, and landed several hundred Slaves, near Brunswick, Georgia ; whence they were speedily distributed in that and other States. The Augusta Chronicle, of December 16th (opposed to the [387] traffic), says that 'about 270 of the cargo are now on a plantation in South Carolina, two or three miles below this city, on the Savannah river, and we suppose will soon he offered for sale. .... The success of this enterprise by the owners of the Wanderer establishes the fact that if the Southern people intend to suppress this traffic they must rely upon themselves. The coast of the Slaveholding States is so extensive that the entire navy of the United States cannot maintain the law inviolable.' The Augusta Despatch says, 'we learn on good authority, that the cargo consisted of 420. . . . Citizens of our city are probably interested in the enterprise. It is hinted that this is the third cargo landed by the same company, during the last six months. . . . One of our citizens has bought from the lot a stout boy, about fourteen years old, for 250 dollars.' To show 'what practical good can result from the agitation of the revival of the slave-trade, we point to this cargo of sturdy labourers, delivered from the darkness and barbarism of Africa, to be elevated and Christianized on our soil;' and 'to the price paid for this son of the jungles, compared with the exorbitant prices paid for less valuable negroes here ; and we claim that these results are the beginning of the blessings to flow in upon the South' from that agitation. 'This trade may be called piracy, by a false construction of a foolish law, but the clay will come when the South will make it the right arm of her legitimate commerce.' A writer in the Edgefield (South Carolina) Advertiser makes 'an authorized announcement that the slaves brought by the Wanderer have been landed in Edgefield District, and most of them are now within its confines. This act has been done by a combination of many of the first families in Georgia and South Carolina, from purely patriotic motives.' A correspondent of the New York Times writes from Montgomery (Alabama), on December 24th, that he has 'just seen the negroes brought from Africa by Captain Corrie,' of the Wanderer. 'They are real Congo negroes. They came here from Macon, Georgia. ... So far as a successful landing of a cargo of native Africans on our Southern coast can effect that result, the African slave-trade has actually been re-opened.' The Atlanta (Georgia) Intelligencer states that 'forty negroes said to be direct [388] from Africa,' and believed to be part of the Wanderer's cargo, passed through Atlanta by railroad, going west, on the 23rd of December.A little later, a despatch from Savannah says that 'scores have been transported by railroads and steamers throughout the South.' The Vicksburg (Mississippi) Sun speaks of two of them as 'smuggled into Mississippi,' and living 'on a plantation bordering on the Mississippi central railroad, between Canton and Durant.'Other papers, in different parts of the South, mention parties of them as having been in their respective neighbourhoods. With all this publicity as to where they were, we hear of no earnest effort of the government to get possession of the captives, and restore them to freedom and home. One of them was 'arrested' on the coast, a few days after the landing, but was soon after 'abducted' at night from the place where he had been put for safe keeping ; no pains having been taken to guard him securely, though the marshal had been warned of a probable attempt at abduction. Two others were taken in Macon, and sent to Savannah, where they were kept several weeks in jail, and then given up by a justice of the peace to C. A. L. Lamar (the openly avowed owner of the Wanderer), who claimed them as his property, supporting his claim by proof that they had been seen in his possession. This, it seems is, by Georgia law, presumptive proof of good title to black men. The United States attorney and the marshal had notice of the proceedings, but declined to interfere, the latter expressly disclaiming any right to detain the Africans. A deputy-marshal, in Telfair County, arrested thirty-six on their way to Alabama in charge of one or two men, put them in the county jail, and reported to the marshal at Savannah what he had done. The marshal replied that he 'had telegraphed and written to the authorities at Washington, and had received no answer respecting the Africans known to be in the country, and his advice was to turn them loose and let them go on their way.' The deputy did so ; the persons from whom they had been taken resumed the charge of them, and pursued their journey. A few weeks after this, some persons from Worth County, who had assisted in the arrest, having visited Savannah, Lamar made oath, before a justice of the peace, that they had stolen from [389] him certain negroes of the value of at least 2,000 dollars; whereupon they were arrested and hound over for trial at the October term of the Worth superior court, on a charge of larceny.

"We do not hear of even an attempt to secure any of the remaining hundreds of the imported Africans, and the whole cargo seems now to have sunk into the mass of the slave population and disappeared.

"On the first public knowledge of the Wanderer's arrival, three of her crew were arrested, and, after examination, bound over to answer at the next term of the United States District Court, in Savannah. Six weeks later, the captain surrendered himself to the United States marshal, in Charleston (South Carolina), and was held to hail in 5,000 dollars. Indictments were found against him in Savannah, but warrants for his arrest were refused by the judge of the South Carolina District, on the ground that, having been bound over to appear in that District, it was there he ought to he indicted. As yet we have heard of no further proceedings in these cases.

"The vessel was condemned as a slaver, and sold at auction, on the 12th of March, but to Lamar himself, and, it is said, for less than a quarter of its value. He claimed it as his property, unjustly taken from him ; and appealed to the crowd not to bid against him. Very few did so ; only one, it seems, to any considerable amount ; and him he knocked down, amid general applause. It is affirmed that 'the marshal seemed to favour Lamar, not dwelling an instant after his last bid. Thus, instead of promptly taking measures to hold him to account for the piracy in which his own repeated public avowals prove him to have been the real principal, the government restored to him, with a legal title, and at a price little more than nominal, the forfeited instrument of its perpetration ; very probably to he used in repeating the crime. He has since, however, been indicted for aiding and abetting in the slave-trade, and for having in his possession, and for claiming, Africans recently imported ; but, as a Savannah jury will try him, he is in little danger of conviction.

"Two parties of the newly-imported Africans having been brought to Mobile, Judge Campbell, of the United States Circuit Court for [390] the Southern District of Alabama, took occasion from that fact, in charging the grand jury, at Mobile, on the 12th of April, to expound very distinctly the law concerning the slave-trade ; denouncing in emphatic terms the 'piratical efforts lately made to make slaves of Africans, in despite of the treaties and laws of the United States;' and 'invoking the active and diligent efforts of the grand jury to bring the malefactors to justice.' We do not yet hear of any remarkable 'diligent efforts' to that end. But the news may not have had time to reach us." — Annual Report for the year ending May 1, 1859, pp. 45-48.

"The St. Augustine (Florida) Examiner, of July 21, gives an account of a case in Florida, in which the Federal authorities had notice of a slaver's being off the coast, but, upon going to the region indicated, were told that the vessel (schooner Experiment), had landed her cargo near Jupiter's Inlet, six weeks before, and of course the 'birds had flown.' 'We understand more are expected shortly,' adds the Examiner, coolly taking it for granted that caution is needless, and censure uncalled for, hi speaking of the business. The Pensacola (Florida) Observer confirms, on the authority of Colonel Blackburn, United States Marshal, a statement sent from Jacksonville, on the 16th of last July, that 'a cargo of six hundred Africans has been landed on the Florida coast, near Smyrna ;' and says, that 'as soon as the landing was effected, the vessel was set on fire and abandoned to the elements.'" — Annual Report for the year 1861, p. 22.

APPENDIX M. THE PHILOSOPHY OF SECESSION.↩

By the Hon. L. W. Spratt.

BEING A PROTEST AGAINST A DECISION OF THE SOUTHERN CONGRESS.

From the Charleston Mercury, 13th February, 1861.

To the Hon. John Perkins, Delegate from Louisiana :

From the abstract of the Constitution for the Provisional Government, [391] published in the papers of this morning, it appears that the slave trade, except with the Slave States of North America, shall be prohibited. The Congress, therefore, not content with the laws of the late United States against it, which, it is to be presumed, were re-adopted, have unalterably fixed the subject by a provision of the Constitution. That provision, for reasons equally conclusive, will doubtless pass into the Constitution of the permanent government. The prohibition, therefore, will no longer be a question of policy, but will be a cardinal principle of the Southern Confederacy. It will not be a question for the several States, in view of any peculiarity in their circumstances and condition, but will be fixed by a paramount power, which nothing but another revolution can overturn. If Texas shall want labour she must elect whether it shall be hireling labour or slave labour ; and if she shall elect slave labour she must be content with that only which comes from other States on this continent, and at such prices as the States on this continent shall see proper to exact. If Virginia shall not join the Confederacy of the South, she is at least assured of a market for her slaves at undiminished prices ; and if there shall be, as there unquestionably is, a vast demand for labour at the South ; and if there shall be, as there unquestionably will be, a vast supply of pauper labour from the North and Europe, and the States of the South shall be in danger of being overrun and abolitionized, as the States of the North have been overrun and abolitionized, there must be no power in any State to counteract the evil. Democracy is right, for it has the approval of the world ; slavery wrong, and only to be tolerated in consideration of the property involved ; and while the one is to be encouraged, therefore the other is to be presented in such attitude as to be as little offensive as it may be to the better sentiment of an enlightened world.

Such I take to be a fair statement of the principles announced in the earliest utterance of the Southern Republic ; and I need scarcely say that I deprecate them greatly. I fear their effects upon the present harmony of feeling ; I fear their effects upon the fortunes of the Republic ; and I will take the liberty of intervening and of presenting reasons why I think we should not take such [392] action at the present time. I may seem presumptuous, but I have a stake too great to scruple at the measures necessary to preserve it. I take a liberty, without permission, in making you the object of this letter ; but our personal relations will assure you that I have but the simple purpose, if possible, to be of service to my country ; and if, in representing a measure so offensive, I may seem wanting in respect for the "spirit of the age," I have but to say that I have been connected with the slave trade measure from the start. I have incurred whatever of odium could come from its initiation ; I have been trusted by its friends with a leading part in its advancement ; and so situated, at a time when prejudice or a mistaken policy would seem to shape our action to a course inconsistent with our dignity and interests, I have no personal considerations to restrain me, and feel that it is within my province to interpose .and offer what I can of reasons to arrest it.

Nor will I be justly chargeable with an unreasonable agitation of this question. "We were truly solicitous to postpone it to another time ; we were willing to acquiesce in whatever policy the States themselves might see proper to adopt. But when it is proposed to take advantage of our silence, to enter judgment by default, to tie the hands of States, and so propitiate a foreign sentiment by a concession inconsiderate and gratuitous, it is our privilege to intervene; and I am in error if your clear conception of the questions at issue, and your devotion to the paramount cause of the South, will not induce you to admit that the odium is not on us of introducing a distracting issue.

The South is now in the formation of a Slave Republic. This, perhaps, is not admitted generally. There are many contented to believe that the South as a geographical section is in mere assertion of its independence ; that it is instinct with no especial truth — pregnant of no distinct social nature ; that for some unaccountable reason the two sections have become opposed to each other ; that for reasons equally insufficient there is disagreement between the peoples that direct them ; and that from no overruling necessity, no impossibility of coexistence, but as mere matter of policy, it has been considered best for the South to strike out for herself [393] and establish an independence of her own. This, I fear, is an inadequate conception of the controversy.

The contest is not between the North and South as geographical sections, for between such sections merely there can be no contest ; nor between the people of the North and the people of the South, for our relations have been pleasant, and on neutral grounds there is still nothing to estrange us. "We eat together, trade together, and practise yet, in intercourse, with great respect, the courtesies of common life. But the real contest is between the two forms of society which have become established, the one at the North, and the other at the South. Society is essentially different from government— as different as is the nut from the bur, or the nervous body of the shell-fish from the bony structure which surrounds it ; and within this government two societies had become developed as variant in structure and distinct in form as any two beings in animated nature. The one is a society composed of one race, the other of two races. The one is bound together but by the two great social relations of husband and wife and parent and child ; the other by the three relations of husband and wife, and parent and child, and master and slave. The one embodies in its political structure the principle that equality is the right of man ; the other that it is the right of equals only. The one embodying the principle that equality is the right of man, expands upon the horizontal plane of pure democracy ; the other embodying the principle that it is not the right of man, but of equals only, has taken to itself the rounded form of a social aristocracy. In the one there is hireling labour, in the other slave labour ; in the one, therefore, in theory at least, labour is voluntary, in the other involuntary ; in the labour of the one there is the elective franchise, in the other there is not ; and, as labour is always in excess of direction, in the one the power of government is only with the lower classes ; in the other the upper. In the one therefore, the reins of government come from the heels, in the other from the head of the society : in the one it is guided by the worst, in the other by the best, intelligence ; in the one it is from those who have the least, in the other from those who have the greatest, stake in the continuance of existing order. In the one [394] the pauper labourer has the power to rise and appropriate by law the goods protected by the State — when pressure comes, as come it must, there will be the motive to exert it — and thus the ship of State turns bottom upwards. In the other there is no pauper labour with power of rising ; the ship of State has the ballast of a disfranchised class : there is no possibility of political upheaval, therefore, and it is reasonably certain that, so steadied, it will sail erect and onward to an indefinitely distant period.

Such are some of the more obvious differences in form and constitution between these two societies which had come into contact within the limits of the recent Union. And perhaps it is not the least remarkable, in this connection, that while the one, a shapeless, organless, mere mass of social elements in no definite relation to each other, is loved and eulogized, and stands the ideal of the age ; the other comely, and proportioned with labour and direction, mind and matter in just relation to each other, presenting analogy to the very highest developments in animated nature, is condemned and reprobated. Even we ourselves have hardly ventured to affirm it — while the cock crows, in fact, are ready to deny it ; and if it shall not perish on the cross of human judgment, it must be for the reason that the Great Eternal has not purposed that still another agent of his will shall come to such excess of human ignominy.

Such are the two forms of society which had come to contest within the structure of the recent Union. And the contest for existence was inevitable. Neither could concur in the requisitions of the other ; neither could expand within the forms of a single government without encroachment on the other. Like twin lobsters in a single shell, if such a tiling were possible, the natural expansion of the one must be inconsistent with the existence of the other ; or, like an eagle and a fish, joined by an indissoluble bond, which for no reason of its propriety could act together, where the eagle could not share the fluid suited to the fish and live, where the fish could not share the fluid suited to the bird and live, and where one must perish that the other may survive, unless the unnatural Union shall be severed — so these societies could not, if they would, concur. [395] The principle that races are unequal, and that among unequals inequality is right, would have been destructive to the form of pure democracy at the North. The principle that all men are equal and equally right, would have been destructive of slavery at the South. Each required the element suited to its social nature. Each must strive to make the government expressive of its social nature. The natural expansion of the one must become encroachment on the other, and so the contest was inevitable. Seward and Lincoln, in theory at least, whatever be their aim, are right. I realized the fact and so declared the conflict irrepressible years before either ventured to advance that proposition. Upon that declaration I have always acted, and the recent experience of my country has not induced me to question the correctness of that first conception. Nor is indignation at such leaders becoming the statesmen of the South. The tendency of social action was against us. The speaker, to be heard, must speak against slavery ; the preacher, to retain his charge, must preach against slavery ; the author, to be read, must write against slavery ; the candidate, to attain office, must pledge himself against slavery ; the office-holder, to continue, must redeem the pledges of the candidate. They did not originate the policy, but they pandered to it ; they did not start the current, but they floated on it ; and were as powerless as drift-wood to control its course. The great tendency to social conflict pre-existed ; it was in the heart of the North — it was in the very structure of Northern society. It was not a matter of choice but of necessity that such society should disaffirm a society in contradiction of it. It was not a matter of choice but of necessity that it should approve of acts against it. In possession of power, it flowed to political action on the South, as fluids flow to lower levels. The acts of individuals were unimportant. If I had possessed the power to change the mind of every Republican in Congress, I would not have been at the pains to do so. They would have fallen before an indignant constituency, and men would have been sent to their places whose minds could never change. Nor, in fact, have they been without their use. As the conflict was irrepressible, as they were urged on by an inexorable power, it was important we should know it. Our [396] own political leaders refused to realize the fact. The zealots of the North alone could force the recognition ; and I am bound to own that Giddings, and Greeley, and Seward, and Lincoln, parasites as they are, panderers to popular taste as they are, the instruments, and the mere instruments, of aggression, have done more to rouse us to the vindication of our rights than the bravest and best among us.

Such, then, was the nature of this contest. It was inevitable. It was inaugurated with the government. It began at the beginning, and almost at the start the chances of the game were turned against us. If the foreign slave trade had never been suppressed, slave society must have triumphed. It would have extended to the limits of New England.

Pari passu with emigrants from Europe came slaves from Africa. Step by step the two in union marched upon the West, and it is reasonably certain had the means to further union been admitted, that so they would have continued to march upon the West, that slave labour would have been cheaper than hireling labour, that, transcending agriculture, it would have expanded to the arts ; and that thus one homogeneous form of labor and one homogeneous form of society, unquestioned by one single dreamer, and cherished at home and honoured abroad, would have overspread the entire available surface of the late United States. But the slave-trade suppressed, democratic society has triumphed. The States of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware found an attractive market for their slaves. They found a cheaper pauper labour to replace it ; that pauper labour poured in from Europe ; while it replaced the slave, it increased the political power of the Northern States. More than five millions from abroad have been added to their number ; that addition has enabled them to grasp and hold the government. That government, from the very necessities of their nature they are forced to use against us. Slavery was within its grasp, and forced to the option of extinction in the Union, or of independence out, it dares to strike, and it asserts its claim to nationality and its right to recognition among the leading social systems of the world.

[397]

Such, then, being the nature of the contest, this Union has been disrupted in the effort of slave society to emancipate itself; and the momentuous question now to he determined is, shall that effort he successful ? That the Republic of the South shall sustain her independence, there is little question. The form of our society is too pregnant of intellectual resources and military strength to be subdued, if, in its products, it did not hold the bonds of amity and peace upon all the leading nations of the world. But in the independence of the South is there surely the emancipation of domestic slavery ? That is greatly to be doubted. Our property in slaves will be established. If it has stood in a government more than half of which has been pledged to its destruction, it will surely stand in a government every member of which will be pledged in its defence. But will it be established as a normal institution of society, and stand the sole exclusive social system of the South ? That is the impending question, and the fact is yet to be recorded. That it will so stand somewhere at the South I do not entertain the slightest question. It may be overlooked or disregarded now. It has been the vital agent of this great controversy. It has energized the arm of every man who acts a part in this great drama. We may shrink from recognition of the fact ; we may decline to admit the source of our authority ; refuse to slavery an invitation to the table which she herself has so bountifully spread ; but not for that will it remain powerless or unhonoured. It may be abandoned by Virginia, Maryland, Missouri ; South Carolina herself may refuse to espouse it. The hireling labourer from the North and Europe may drive it from our seaboard. As the South shall become the centre of her own trade, the metropolis of her own commerce, the pauper population of the world will pour upon us. It may replace our slaves upon the seaboard, as it has replaced them in the Northern States ; but concentrated in the States upon the Gulf it will make its stand, condensed to the point at which the labour of the slave transcends the want of agriculture, it will flow to other objects ; it will lay its giant grasp upon still other departments of industry ; its every step will be exclusive ; it will be unquestioned lord of each domain on which it enters. With [398] that perfect economy of resources, that just application of power, that concentration of forces, that security of order which results to slavery from the permanent direction of its best intelligence, there is no other form of human labour that can stand against it, and it will build itself a home and erect for itself, at some point within the present limits of the Southern States, a structure of imperial power and grandeur — a glorious Confederacy of States that will stand aloft and serene for ages amid the anarchy of democracies that will reel around it.

But it maybe that to this end another revolution maybe necessary. It is to be apprehended that this contest between democracy and slavery is not yet over. It is certain that both forms of society exist within the limits of the Southern States; both are distinctly developed within the limits of Virginia; and there, whether we perceive the fact or not, the war already rages. In that State there are about 500,000 slaves to about 1,000,000 whites; and as at least as many slaves as masters are necessary to the constitution of slave society, about 500,000 of the white population are in legitimate relation to the slaves, and the rest are in excess. Like an excess of alkali or acid in chemical experiments, they are unfixen in social compound. Without legitimate connection with the slave, they are in competition with him. They constitute not a part of slave society, but a democratic society. In so far as there is this connection, the State is slave; in so far as there is not, it is democratic; and as States speak only from their social condition, as interests, not intellect, determine their political action, it is thus that Virginia has been undecided — that she does not truly know whether she is of the North or South in this great movement. Her people are individually noble, brave, and patriotic, and they will strike for the South in resistance to physical aggression ; but her political action is, at present, paralyzed by this unnatural contest, and as causes of disintegration may continue — must continue, if the slave trade be not re-opened — as there will still be a market at the South for her slaves — as there will still be pauper labour from abroad to supply their places, and more abundant from industrial dissolutions at the North, and the one race must increase as the other is diminished — it [399] is to be feared that there the slave must ultimately fail, and that this great state must lose the institution, and bend her proud spirit to the yoke of another democratic triumph. In Maryland, Missouri, Kentucky, and even Tennessee and North Carolina, the same facts exist, with chances of the like result.

And even in this State [south carolina] the ultimate result is not determined. The slave condition here would seem to be established. There is here an excess of 120,000 slaves, and here is fairly exhibited the normal nature of the institution. The officers of the State are slave-owners and the representatives of slave-owners. In their public acts they exhibit the consciousness of a superior position. Without unusual individual ability, they exhibit the elevation of tone and composure of public sentiment proper to a master class. There is no appeal to the mass, for there is no mass to appeal to ; there are no demagogues, for there is no populace to breed them ; judges are not forced upon the stump ; governors are not dragged before the people ; and when there is cause to act upon the fortunes of our social institution, there is perhaps an unusual readiness to meet it. The large majority of our people are in legitimate connection with the institution — in legitimate dependence on the slave ; and it were to be supposed that here at least the system of slave society would be permanent and pure. But even here the process of disintegration has commenced. In our larger towns it just begins to be apparent. Within ten years past as many as 10,000 slaves have been drawn away from Charleston by the attractive prices of the West, and labourers from abroad have come to take their places. These labourers have every disposition to work above the slave, and if there were opportunity would be glad to do so ; but without such opportunity they come to competition with him ; they are necessarily resistive to the contact. Already there is the disposition to exclude him ; from the trades, from public works, from drays, and the tables of hotels, he is even now excluded to a great extent. And when enterprises at the North are broken up ; when more labourers are thrown from employment ; when they shall come in greater numbers to the South they will still more increase the tendency to exclusion ; they will question the right of masters to employ their slaves in any works [400] that they may wish for ; they will invoke the aid of legislation ; they will use the elective franchise to that end ; they may acquire the power to determine municipal elections ; they will inexorably use it ; and thus this town of Charleston, at the very heart of slavery, may become a fortress of democratic power against it. As it is in Charleston, so also is it to a less extent in the interior towns.

Nor is it only in the towns the tendency appears. The slaves, from lighter lands within the State, have been drawn away for years for higher prices in the West. They are now being drawn away from rice culture. Thousands are sold from rice fields every year. None are brought to them. They have already been drawn from the culture of indigo and all manufacturing employments. They are yet retained by cotton and the culture incident to cotton ; but as almost every negro offered in our markets is bid for by the West the drain is likely to continue. It is probable that more abundant pauper labor may pour in, and it is to be feared that even in this State, the purest in its slave condition, democracy may gain a foothold, and that here also the contest for existence may be waged between them.

It thus appears that the contest is not ended with a dissolution of the Union, and that the agents of that contest still exist within the limits of the Southern States. The causes that have contributed to the defeat of slavery still occur; our slaves are still drawn off by higher prices to the West. There is still foreign pauper labor ready to supply their place. Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, possibly Tennessee and North Carolina, may lose their slaves, as New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey have done. In that condition they must recommence the contest. There is no avoiding that necessity. The systems cannot mix ; and thus it is that slavery, like the Thracian horse returning from the field of victory, still bears a master on his back ; and, having achieved one revolution to escape democracy at the North, it must still achieve another to escape it at the South. That it will ultimately triumph none can doubt. It will become redeemed and vindicated, and the only question now to be determined is, shall there be another revolution to that end? It is not necessary. Slavery within the seceding States at least is now [401] emancipated if men put forward as its agents have intrepidity to realize the fact and act upon it. It is free to choose its constitution and its policy, and you and others are now elected to the high office of that determination. If you shall elect slavery, avow it and affirm it not as an existing fact, but as a living principle of social order, and assert its right, not to toleration only, but to extension and political recognition among the nations of the earth. If, in short, you shall own slavery as the source of your authority, and act for it, and erect as your are commissioned to erect, not only a Southern, but a Slave Republic, the work will he accomplished. Those States intending to espouse and perpetuate the institution will enter your Confederacy; those that do not, will not. Your Republic will not require the. pruning process of another revolution ; but, poised upon its institution, will move on to a career of greatness and of glory unapproached by any other nation in the world.

But if you shall not ; if you shall commence by ignoring slavery, or shall be content to edge it on by indirection ; if you shall exhibit care but for a Republic, respect but for a democracy ; if you shall stipulate for the toleration of slavery as an existing evil by admitting assumptions to its prejudice and restrictions to its power and progress, re-inaugurate the blunder of 1789; you will combine States, whether true or not, to slavery ; you will have no tests of faith ; some will find it to their interest to abandon it ; slave labor will be fettered ; hireling labor will be free ; your Confederacy is again divided into antagonist societies ; the irrepressible conflict is again commenced ; and as slavery can sustain the structure of a stable government, and will sustain such structure, and as it will sustain no structure but its own, another revolution comes — but whether in the order and propriety of this, is gravely to be doubted.

Is it, then, in the just performance of your office, that you would impose a constitutional restriction against the foreign slave trade ? Will you affirm slavery by reprobating the means of its formation ? Will you extend slavery by introducing the means to its extinction ? Will you declare to Virginia if she shall join, that under no circumstances shall she be at liberty to restore the integrity of her slave condition ? that her five hundred thousand masters without slaves [402] shall continue ? that the few slaves she has shall still be subject to the requisitions of the South and West ? that she shall still be subject to the incursions of white laborers, without the slaves to neutralize their social tendencies ? and thus, therefore, that she must certainly submit to be abolitionized, and when so abolitionized that she must surely be thrown off, to take her fortunes with the Abolition States ? Will you say the same to Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, and Tennessee ? Will you declare to the State of South Carolina that, if the canker of democracy eats into her towns and cities ; if her lighter lands are exposed, her forms of culture are abandoned, she must still submit to it ? To Texas, that to her imperial domain no other slaves shall come than those she may extort from older States ; and that she must submit to be the waste she is, or else accept the kind of labor that must demoralize the social nature of the State ? Will you do this, and yet say that you erect slavery and affirm it, and, in your ministrations at its altar, own it as the true and only source of your authority ? Individually, I am sure you will not. I am too well assured of your intelligent perception of the questions at issue, and of your devotion to the great cause you have espoused, to entertain a doubt upon that subject ; but others may, and that I may meet suggestions likely to arise, I will task your indulgence further.

Then why adopt this measure? Is it that Virginia and the other Border States require it ? They may require it now, but is it certain they will continue to require it ? Virginia and the rest have never yet regarded slavery as a normal institution of society. They have regarded the slave as property, but not slavery as a relation. They have treated it as a prostitution, but have never yet espoused it. Their men of intellect have exhibited enlightened views upon this subject, but their politicians who have held the public ear have ever presented it as a thing of dollars, and to be fought for, if need be, but not to be cherished and perpetuated. And is it certain that when better opinions shall prevail ; that when they join, if they shall join, a Slave Republic, a Republic to perpetuate the institution, when there shall be less inducement to sell their slaves, and the [403] assurance that when they shall sell them they will fall under the rule of a democracy which must unfit them for association in a slave confederacy — the people of these States may not solicit an increase of slaves ? And is it policy to preclude the possibility of such an increase ? But admit the change may never come, yet against all the evils to result from the slave trade these States are competent to protect themselves. The failure of the general government to preclude that trade by constitutional provision by no means precludes them from such a prohibition. If they may never want them, they may keep them out, without the application of a Procrustean policy to all the other States of the Confederacy. It may be said that without such general restriction the value of their slaves will be diminished in the markets of the West. They have no right to ask that their slaves, or any other products, shall be protected to unnatural value in the markets of the West. If they persist in regarding the negro but as a tiring of trade — a thing which they are too good to use, but only can produce for others' uses — and join the Confederacy, as Pennsylvania or Massachusetts might do, not to support the structure, but to profit by it, it were as well they should not join, and we can find no interest in such association.

Is it that the Cotton States themselves require it ? If so, each for itself may adopt the prohibition. But they do not. The political leaders of the country are not ready for the proposition, as they were not ready for the measure of secession. Many leaders of the South, many men who meet you in Convention, have been forced to that position by a popular movement they had never the political courage to direct ; and so, perhaps, in any case the whole machinery of society must start before the political hands upon the dial-plate can indicate its progress ; and so, therefore, as this question is not moved — as the members of this Congress are charged to perfect the dissolution of the old government, but have not been instructed as to this permanent requisition of the new — they may be mistaken, as they would have been mistaken, if by chance they had met six months ago and spoken upon the question of secession. And they are mistaken, if, from any reference to popular feeling, [404] they inaugurate the action now proposed. The people of the Cotton States want labour ; they know that whites and slaves cannot work together. They have no thought of abandoning their slaves that they may get white labour ; and they want slaves, therefore, and they will have them — from the Seaboard States, if the slave trade be not opened, and they cannot heartily embrace a policy which, while it will tend to degrade the Seaboard States to the condition of a democracy, will compel them to pay double and treble prices for their labour.

It may be said in this connection that, though the Cotton States might tolerate the slave trade, it would overstock the country and induce a kind of social suffocation. It is one of the most grievous evils of the time that men have persisted in legislating on domestic slavery with what would seem to be an industrious misapprehension of its requisities. It is assumed that it is ready to explode, while it is in an ordinary state of martial law, (sic) as perfect as that which, in times of popular outbreak, is the last and surest provision for security and order. It is assumed that the negro is unfit for mechanical employments, when he exhibits an imitative power of manipulation unsurpassed by any other creature in the world ; and when, as a matter of fact, we see him daily in the successful prosecution of the trades, and are forced to know that he is not more generally employed for reason of the higher prices offered for him by our fields of cotton. It is assumed that he cannot endure the cold of Northern States, when he dies not more readily in Canada than Domingo, and when the finest specimens of negro character and negro form to be met with in the world are on the northern borders of Maryland and Missouri. It is assumed that whenever he comes in contact with free society we must quail before it, when it is evident that the question which shall prevail is dependent on the question which can work the cheapest ; and when it is evident that with slaves at starvation prices — slaves at prices to which they will be reduced by the question whether we shall give them up or feed them — at prices to which they will be reduced when the question comes whether they shall starve the [405] hireling or the hireling the slave, the system of domestic slavery, guided always by its best intelligence, directed always by the strictest economy, with few invalids and few inefficients, can underwork the world. And it is assumed that, hemmed in as we will be, but a slight addition to our slaves will induce disastrous consequences. But it is demonstrable that negroes are more easily held to slavery than white men ; and that more in proportion, therefore, can be held in subjection by the same masters ; and yet in the Republic of Athens of white slaves there were four to one ; and in portions of the Roman Empire the proportion was greater still ; and upon this ratio the slaves might be increased to forty millions, without a corresponding increase among the whites, and yet occur no disaster ; but on our rice lands, isolated to a great extent where negroes are employed in thousands, there is often not one white man to one hundred slaves. Nor is there greater danger of an overcrowded population. Slaves may be held to greater density than freemen ; order will be greater, and the economy of resources will be greater. Athens had seven hundred to the square mile, while Belgium, the most densely populated state of modern Europe, has but about three hundred and eighty-eight to the square mile ; and with a population only as dense as Belgium, South Carolina could hold the population of the Southern States, and Texas three times the present population of the Union.

Is it that foreign nations will require it ? As a matter of taste they might perhaps. There is a mode upon the subject of human rights at present, and England, France, and other states that are leaders of the mode, might be pleased to see the South comply with the standard of requirement, and, provided only no serious inconvenience or injury resulted, would be pleased to see the South suppress not only the slave trade, but slavery itself. But will our failure to do so make any greater difference in our relations with those states ? Men may assume it if they will, but it argues a pitiable want of intelligence and independence, an abject want of political spirit to suppose it. France and England trade in coolies, and neither will have the hardihood to affirm that between that [406] and the slave trade, there is an essential difference, and practising the one they cannot war with us for practising the others. Nor, in fact, do they wage war upon the slave trade. Spain permits the trade in Cuba, though she acknowledges the mode by professing to prohibit it. Portugal and Turkey do not even so much. Even England lends her ships to keep the slave trade open in the Black Sea ; and almost every slave bought in Africa is paid for in English fabrics, to the profit of the English merchant, and with the knowledge of the British government. In view of these facts, it were simple to suppose that European states will practise sentiment, at the expense of interest. And have they interest in the suppression of the slave trade ? Three years ago in my report to the Commercial Convention at Montgomery, I said that European states are hostile to the Union. Perhaps "they see in it a threatening rival in every branch of art, and they see that rival armed with one of the most potent productive institutions the world has ever seen : they would crush India and Algeria to make an equal supply of cotton with the North; and, failing in this, they would crush slavery to bring the North to a footing with them, but to slavery without the North they have no repugnance ; on the contrary, if it were to stand out for itself, free from the control of any other power, and were to offer to European states, upon fair terms, a full supply of its commodities, it would not only not be warred upon, but the South would be singularly favoured — crowns would bend before her; kingdoms and empires would break a lance to win the smile of her approval ; and, quitting her free estate, it would be in her option to become the bride of the world, rather than, as now, the miserable mistress of the North."

This opinion seemed then almost absurd, but recent indications have rendered it the common opinion of the country ; and as, therefore, they have no repugnance to slavery in accordance with their interests, so also can they have none to the extension of it. They will submit to any terms of intercourse with the Slave Republic in consideration of its markets and its products. An increase of slaves will increase the market and supply. They will pocket their [407] philanthropy and the profits together. And so solicitude as to the feeling of foreign States upon this subject is gratuitous : and so it is that our suppression of the slave trade is warranted by no necessity to respect the sentiment of foreign States. We may abnegate ourselves if we will, defer to others if we will, but every such act is a confession of a weakness, the less excusable that it does not exist, and we but industriously provoke the contempt of States we are desirous to propitiate. Is it that we debase our great movement by letting it down to the end of getting slaves ? We do not propose to reopen the slave trade ; we merely propose to take no action on the subject. I truly think we want more slaves. We want them to the proper cultivation of our soil, to the just development of our resources, and to the proper constitution of society. Even in this State I think we want them ; of eighteen million acres of land, less than four million are in cultivation. We have no seamen for our commerce, if we had it, and no operatives for the arts ; but it is not for that I now oppose restrictions on the slave trade. I oppose them from the wish to emancipate our institution. I regard the slave trade as the test of its integrity. If that be right, then slavery is right, but not without ; and I have been too clear in my perceptions of the claims of that great institution — too assured of the failure of antagonist democracy, too convinced the one presents the conditions of social order, too convinced the other does not, and too convinced, therefore, that the one must stand while the other falls, to abate my efforts or pretermit the means by which it may be brought to recognition and establishment.

Believing, then, that this is a test of slavery, and that the institution cannot be right if the trade be not, I regard the constitutional prohibition as a great calamity. If the trade be only wrong in policy it would be enough to leave its exclusion to the several States that would feel the evils of that policy; but it is only upon the supposition that it is wrong in principle, wrong radically, and therefore never to be rendered proper by any change of circumstances which may make it to our interest, that it is becoming in the general government to take organic action to [408] arrest. The action of the confederacy is, then, a declaration of that fact, and it were vain to sustain the institution in the face of such admissions to its prejudice.

It will be said that at the outset of our career it were wise to exhibit deference to the moral sentiment of the world; the obligation is as perfect to respect the moral sentiment of the world against the institution. The world is just as instant to assert that slavery itself is wrong, and if we forego the slave trade in consideration of the moral feeling of the world, then why not slavery also? It were madness now to blink the question. We are entering at last upon a daring innovation upon the social constitutions of the world. We are erecting a nationality upon a union of races, where other nations have but one. We cannot dodge the issue ; we cannot disguise the issue ; we cannot safely change our front in the face of a vigilant adversary. Every attempt to do so, every refusal to assist ourselves, every intellectual or political evasion, is a point against us. We may postpone the crisis by disguises, but the slave republic must forego its nature and its destiny, or it must meet the issue, and our assertion of ourselves will not be easier for admissions made against us. And is it not in fact from a sense of weakness that there is such admission ? Is there a man who votes for this measure but from misgivings as to slavery, and as to the propriety of its extension? Therefore is there not the feeling that the finger of scorn will be pointed at him without ; and is he who doubts the institution, or he who has no higher standard of the right than what the world may say about it, the proper man to build the structure of a slave republic ? The members of that Convention are elected to important posts in the grand drama of human history. Such opportunity but seldom comes of moulding the destiny of men and nations. If they shall rise to the occasion, they shall realize their work and do it, they will leave a record that will never be effaced ; but if they shall not — if they shall shrink from truth, for reason that it is unhonored ; if they shall cling to error, for reason that it is approved, and so let down their character, and act some other part than that before them, they will leave a record which [409] their successors will be anxious to efface — names which posterity will be delighted to honor.

Opinions, when merely true, move slowly ; but when approved, acquire proclivity. Those as to the right of slavery have been true, merely so far, but they came rapidly to culmination. I was the single advocate of the slave trade in 1853 ; it is now the question of the time. Many of us remember when we heard slavery first declared to be of the normal constitution of society ; few now will dare to disaffirm it. Those opinions now roll on; they are now not only true but are coming to be trusted ; they have moved the structure of the State, and men who will not take the impulse and advance must perish in the track of their advancement. The members of your Convention may misdirect the movement — they may impede the movement — they may so divert it that another revolution may be necessary ; but if necessarily that other revolution comes, slavery will stand serene, erect, aloft, unquestioned as to its rights or its integrity at some points within the present limits of the Southern States, and it is only for present actors to determine whether they will contribute or be crushed to that result.

I hope you will pardon this communication; it is too long, but I have not had time to make it shorter. I hope also you will find it consistent with your views to urge the policy I have endeavoured to advance. If the clause be carried into the permanent government, our whole movement is defeated. It will abolitionize the Border Slave States — it will brand our institution. Slavery cannot share a government with democracy — it cannot bear a brand upon it ; thence another revolution. It may be painful, but we must make it. The Constitution cannot be changed without. The Border States, discharged of slavery, will oppose it. They are to be included by the concession ; they will be sufficient to defeat it. It is doubtful if another movement will be so peaceful; but no matter, no power but the Convention can avert the necessity. The clause need not necessarily be carried into the permanent government, but I fear it will be. The belief that it is agreeable to popular feeling will continue. The popular mind cannot now be worked up to the [410] task of dispelling the belief; the same men who have prepared, the provisional will prepare the permanent constitution ; the same influence will affect them. It will he difficult to reverse their judgment in the conventions of the several States. The effort will at least distract us, and so it is to be feared this fatal action may be consummated ; but that it may not is the most earnest wish I now can entertain.

Respectfully, your obedient servant,
L. W. Spratt.

THE END↩

E. D. WEBB AND SON, PRINTERS, 177, GREAT BRUNSWICK-STREET, DUBLIN.