IRLF 
 
 SB 
 
ENGLAND, 
 THE UNITED STATES, 
 
 AND 
 
 HE SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY. 
 
 BY 
 
 F. W. SARGENT, M.D. 
 
 OF PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 SECOND EDITION, 
 
 REVISED AND AMENDED. 
 
 American Slavery is the worst that ever saw the sun : it is tlit sum of all 
 villanies." JOHN WESLEY. 
 
 Slavery is the natural and moral condition of the negro. Our new Government is 
 the first, in the history of the world based upon this great physical, philosophical, 
 and moral truth. "A. H. STEPHENS, Pice-President of the Southern Confederacy. 
 
 LONDON : 
 HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO. 
 
 32, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 1864. 
 
ENGLAND, 
 THE UNITED STATES, 
 
 AND 
 
 THE SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY. 
 
 BY 
 
 F. W. SARGENT, M.D. 
 
 OF PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 SECOND EDITION, 
 
 E VISED AND AMENDED. 
 
 "American Slavery is the worst that ever saw the sun: it is the sum of all 
 villanies." JOHN WESLEY. 
 
 Slavery is the natural and moral condition of the negro. Our new Government is 
 the first in the history of the world based upon this great physical, philosophical, 
 and moral truth." A. H. STEPH^I S, Vice-Precidsn*, of the Southern Confederacy. 
 
 LONDON : 
 HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO. 
 
 32, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 1864. 
 
3 
 
 LONDON 
 
 R CLAY, SON, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS, 
 BRKAD STREET HILL. 
 
TO MY COUNTKY ! 
 
 IN freta dum fluvii current, dum montibus umbrae 
 Lustrabunt convexa, polus dum sidera pascet, 
 Semper honos, nomenque tuum, laudesque manebunt, 
 Quse me cumque vocant terrse. 
 
 JSneid, lib. I. 
 
 227197 
 
P R, E E A C E. 
 
 IN preparing the following pages for publication, the 
 author has been animated by the sincere desire and hope of 
 contributing to lessen the ill-feeling which exists in Great 
 Britain against the United States. He believes that this will 
 be best accomplished by exhibiting important facts concerning 
 the causes of, and the issues involved in, the American Civil 
 War, and concerning the nature and effects of Slavery at the 
 South, drawn chiefly from Southern authorities and from 
 official documents. He asks for a candid reading of his 
 Pamphlet. 
 
 NICE, May 1, 1864. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION PAGE 
 
 Alleged Motives of Secession 1 
 
 Dissimilarity of Northern and Southern People 2 
 
 Oppression of the South by the North 4 
 
 Right of Secession 6 
 
 Alleged Grievances of the South 
 
 Non-execution of Fugitive Slave Laws 19 
 
 The Tariff . . 26 
 
 The True Motive of Secession, the Perpetuation of Slavery 30 
 
 SLAVERY 
 
 Former Sentiments at the South, concerning 37 
 
 Sentiment of the first Congresses 39 
 
 Change of Sentiment at the South 45 
 
 Letter of the Presbyterian Synods 46 
 
 Sermon of Rev. Dr. Palmer, of New Orleans 46 
 
 Pastoral Letter of the Southern Bishops 46 
 
 The Southern Press 48 
 
 Explanation of the Change of Sentiment 49 
 
 The Encroachments of Slavery 59 
 
 The Necessity for Territorial Extension . . 63 
 
 Slavery its own Avenger 65 
 
 - -The Necessity for the Revival of the Slave Trade 68 
 
 ^Measures taken for this object 70 
 
 "Voluntary Abolition by the South 76 
 
 Northern complicity with Slave-holders 77 
 
 Effects of Slavery on Education 82 
 
 ,, Religion 93 
 
 ,, ,, Morals 99 
 
 ,, the Progress of the South 102 
 
 Comparative Salubrity of North and South 102 
 
 / Free-Trade between England and the South 104 
 
viii TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 SLAVEEY (continued] PAGE 
 
 Material Condition of the Slave-holders 105 
 
 ,, Non-Slave-holders 118 
 
 Condition and Treatment of the Slaves 125 
 
 }> ,, Free Negroes 132 
 
 Comparative Besources of North and South 138 
 
 Agricultural Statistics 138 
 
 Comparative Increase of Population 141 
 
 Comparative Industry 
 
 Massachusetts and Carolina compared 142 
 
 United States and the Confederacy . I 45 
 
 -Debt and Eesources of the Confederacy 146 
 
 United States 148 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 Issues involved in the "War 1*3 
 
 British Sympathies 155 
 
 ^British Interests Alliance with the South 157 
 
 Free-Trade with the South 160 
 
 Slavery not yet destroyed 
 
 Charges against the United States 163 
 
 The Keal Sentiment and Policy of the North 171 
 
 Prospects of the Freed Slaves l73 
 
 Emancipation in the West Indies 176 
 
 ERKATA. 
 
 Page 29, line 5, for one-third, read one-fourth. 
 123, line 22, for adverse, read averse. 
 
ENGLAND, THE UNITED STATES, 
 AND THE SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 IN all its aspects the American civil war is one of the most 
 remarkable dramas the world has ever witnessed. Its theatre is 
 a continent ; its actors are thirty millions of people ; its spec 
 tators are all the nations of the earth ; upon its issue depend the 
 fate of an oppressed race, the future of the mightiest republic 
 of modern times, and the advancement or the retrogression of 
 Christian civilization over a large portion of the globe. 
 
 This mighty contest is regarded by Englishmen and by loyal 
 Americans from very different points of view. In England, 
 while some of all classes have comprehended from the first the 
 true nature of the struggle, others have considered it a mere 
 war for political supremacy or independence ; others, again, have 
 seen in it nothing more than a violent disturber of British 
 commercial and industrial interests ; and a fourth and most 
 influential class has concerned itself solely in determining how 
 far the war might be made to benefit Great Britain, at the 
 expense of the United States. 
 
 To us, on the other hand, the strife involves results far more 
 momentous than mere individual interests or sufferings. Our 
 national existence and the very principles of our form of govern 
 ment are at stake ; unimportant or worthless, as these may be 
 to Englishmen, to us they are priceless as his household gods to 
 the old Greek. 
 
 We are sometimes taunted with considering an extensive 
 
 B 
 
OF SECESSION. 
 
 national domain as synonymous with national greatness. We 
 refute the charge by showing what our institutions have accom 
 plished for us, beyond mere material development Under 
 their influence our population has increased from three millions 
 to thirty millions, within the recollection of men now living. 
 They have covered the land (that part of it, at least, where they 
 have had full sway) with schools so numerous that England is 
 put to shame ; with churches providing accommodation for the 
 people greater, comparatively, than the city of London ; with 
 benevolent establishments of all sorts, so liberally administered 
 that England has done us the honour to imitate them. Under 
 their auspices science, literature, the aesthetic and mechanical 
 arts have been so well cultivated that, all things considered, 
 America will bear a favourable comparison with any other 
 country. 
 
 Nor have Americans alone benefited by the institutions of 
 America. She has fed the hungry, she has sheltered the stranger, 
 she has clothed the naked, and ministered to the desolate of 
 every nation iinder heaven. Millions of British subjects who 
 have been thrown off from their own country, as though they 
 had been " unclean " things, have come to America, and America 
 has received them as her own children ; she has taken outcast 
 humanity " by the four corners," as in the strange vision of the 
 apostle, and welcomed it to recognition. And wheresoever in 
 all the world money and self-devotion are needed for benevolent 
 and religious operations, America contributes her full share, and 
 Americans are there to aid the good work. 
 
 For all these reasons we are proud of our country and our 
 institutions, and we think them worth fighting for. 
 
 The object of the following pages is, to exhibit the true nature 
 of the war now raging in the United States, and the issues 
 involved in it. Let us first examine, ag briefly as possible, 
 
 THE ALLEGED AND REAL MOTIVES OF SECESSION. 
 
 It is maintained by many in England that the rupture of the 
 Union is but a natural consequence of the diversity of origin, 
 character, and interests of the people inhabiting the two sections 
 respectively. 
 
 Whatever may be the differences in these respects between 
 the people of the Northern and Southern States, they have never 
 
DISSIMILARITY OF POPULATIONS. .*> 
 
 produced any discordance of action, excepting when the question 
 of slavery has been involved. We have waged war together 
 against other nations (and against our common parent, when 
 colonial idiosyncrasies were more strongly marked than they 
 have been since) ; Northern ingenuity, enterprise, and capital 
 have been freely lent to, and freely borrowed by, the South ; 
 Southerners have come to the North for education, enjoyment, 
 and health ; more than half a million natives of the South were 
 permanent residents at the North, previous to the war ; and all 
 the elegancies and comforts of Southern homes are of Northern, 
 when not of European, origin. 
 
 On the other hand, the population of the Free States is infi 
 nitely more heterogeneous, as every one knows, than that of the 
 Slave States ; yet this leads to no civil conflicts there. So far 
 from it, the Northern population, diverse as it is, has united 
 with unexampled accord to oppose this rebellion. No one can 
 pretend, moreover, that the elements of the population in the 
 United States are a whit more dissimilar or antagonistic than 
 the Irish, Welsh, Scotch, and English of " the United Kingdom," 
 to say nothing of the foreign subjects of Great Britain. 
 
 But we have on this point most weighty testimony from one 
 of the most eminent journalists of the South, a chosen represen 
 tative of South Carolina at the conventions of other Slave States. 
 This gentleman, in discussing " the Philosophy of Secession," 
 says : 
 
 " The South is now in the process of forming a Slave Republic. This, per 
 haps, is not generally admitted. There are many contented to believe 
 that the South, as a geographical section, is in mere assertion of its inde 
 pendence. 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. . . . The real contest is between the two forms of society which have 
 become established the one at the North, the other at the South. 
 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. . . . Such, then, 
 being the nature of the contest, this Union has been disrupted in the effort of 
 
 B 2 
 
4 ALLEGED JUSTIFICATION OF SECESSION. 
 
 slave society to emancipate itself; and the momentous question now being deter 
 mined is, shall that effort be successful ? " * &c. 
 
 It has been affirmed, and nowhere more generally and more 
 persistently than in England, that the Southern States have 
 taken up arms against the Federal Government in exercise of 
 their right to throw off a supremacy which had become preju 
 dicial to them. 
 
 The right of a people to revolt against an unjust and oppres 
 sive Government we all admit ; both England and the United 
 States owe their present liberties to its exercise. But throughout 
 the Western Eepublic there has been no legalised oppression, no 
 systematic denial of rights, save where in the Southern States 
 four millions of human beings have been held in slavery. To 
 prove that the South has not only not been subjected to any op 
 pression, and has had no grievance to complain of, but that it 
 has really governed the whole country from its national inde 
 pendence to the accession of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency, we 
 have the most unimpeachable testimony. In 1861, a convention 
 was held in Georgia to determine wh ether that State should 
 separate from the Union, in consequence of the election of Mr. 
 Lincoln. Amongst those who opposed this step was Mr. 
 Stephens, the actual Vice-President of the Southern Confederacy. 
 We make the following extracts from his most remarkable speech 
 on that occasion : 
 
 " Pause, I entreat you, and consider what reasons you can give for this 
 step (the secession of Georgia) which will even satisfy yourselves in 
 calmer moments what reasons you can give to your fellow-sufferers in 
 the calamity that it will bring upon us ! What reasons can you give 
 to the nations of the earth to justify it? They will be the calm and 
 deliberate judges in the case ; and what cause, or what one overt act, can 
 you name on which to rest the plea of justification ? What right has the 
 North assailed ? What interest of the South has been invaded ? What 
 justice has been denied ? What claim founded on justice and right has 
 been withheld ? Can any of you to-day name one governmental act of 
 wrong, deliberately and purposely done by the Government at Washington, 
 of which the South has a right to complain ? I challenge the answer. . . . 
 When we of the South demanded the slave-trade, or the importation of 
 Africans for the cultivation of our lands, did not the North yield the 
 right for twenty years ] When we asked a three-fifths representation in 
 Congress for our slaves, was it not granted ? When we demanded the 
 
 1 "The Philosophy of Secession," by the Hon. L. W. Spratt, of Charleston ; 
 reprinted in Professor Cairnes work on " The Slave Power," pp. 392-397. 
 
RESISTANCE TO OPPRESSION. 5 
 
 return of any fugitive from justice, or the recovery of persons owing labour 
 or allegiance, was it not incorporated in the Constitution, and again 
 ratified and strengthened by the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 ? 
 
 " But, do you reply that, in many instances, the North has violated this 
 compact, and been unfaithful to this engagement ? Individuals and local 
 communities may have done so, but not by the sanction of Government, 
 for that has always been true to Southern interests. . . 
 
 " But again, gentlemen, what have we to gain by this proposed change 
 of our relation to the general Government ? We have always had the 
 control of it, and can still control it, if we remain under it and are as 
 united as we have been. We have had a majority of the Presidents chosen 
 from the South, as well as the control and management of most of those 
 elected from the North. We have had sixty years of Presidents, the 
 North but twenty-four ; thus we have controlled the Executive Depart 
 ment. So of the judges of the Supreme Court, eighteen have come from 
 the South, only eleven from the North ; although nearly four-fifths of the 
 judicial business has arisen in the Free States, yet a majority of the 
 Court has always been from the South. This we have required so as 
 to guard against any interpretation of the Constitution unfavourable to 
 ourselves. In like manner we have been equally watchful over our 
 interests in the legislative branch of Government. Of the presiding 
 Presidents (pro tempore) of the Senate, we have had twenty-four to their 
 eleven. We have had twenty-three Speakers of the House of Repre 
 sentatives, and they twelve. Thus, while the North, from its greater 
 population, has furnished the majority of the Representatives, we have 
 generally secured the Speaker, because he, to a great extent, shapes and 
 controls the legislation of the country. Nor have we had less influence in 
 every other department of the general Government. We have provided 
 fourteen Attorney-Generals ; the North but five. We have had eighty-six 
 Foreign Ministers ; they but fifty-four. Thus, while three-fourths of the 
 business which demands diplomatic agents abroad is clearly from the Free 
 States, from their greater commercial interests, we have had, nevertheless, 
 the principal Embassies, so as to secure the markets of the world on the 
 best possible terms for our cotton, tobacco, and sugar. We have had 
 a vast majority of the higher offices of both army and navy, while a 
 larger proportion of the soldiers and sailors have been drawn from the 
 North. . . . 
 
 " Again, look at another item, and one in which, be assured, we have a 
 great and vital interest; it is that of the revenue, or the means of sup 
 porting the Government. From official documents we learn that a fraction 
 over three-fourths of the revenue collected has uniformly been raised at 
 the North. . . ." 
 
 Of the General Government, Mr. Stephens spoke in these 
 terms : 
 
 "It is the best and freest Government the most equal in the rights 
 it accords, the most just in its decisions, the most lenient in its measures, 
 
6 ALLEGED JUSTIFICATION OF SECESSION. 
 
 and the most inspiring in its principles to elevate the human race that 
 the sun of heaven ever shone upon. Now, for you to attempt to over 
 throw such a Government as this, under which we have lived for more 
 than three-quarters of a century under which we have gained our wealth, 
 our standing as a nation, our domestic safety while the elements of peril 
 are around us, with peace and tranquillity accompanied by unbounded 
 prosperity, and rights unassailed is the height of madness, folly, and 
 wickedness, to which I can neither lend my sanction nor my vote." 
 
 Within a few months from the delivery of this speech, its 
 author was elected Vice-President of the Southern Confederacy. 
 
 The Border Slave States, 1 in a convention held in June 1861, 
 made the following declaration concerning the seceding States, 
 which is in strict accordance with the opinion of Vice-President 
 Stephens : 
 
 " The acts of these States find no warrant in any known principle of our 
 Government, and no justification in the facts existing, when they seceded. 
 . . . We ask no concession of new or additional rights. We do not fear 
 any immediate encroachment upon our rights as Slave States. . . . The 
 States which have seceded have abandoned the best Government in the 
 world without any good or sufficient cause." 
 
 The Southern rebellion, has, therefore, no claim to favourable 
 consideration, on the plea of its being a resistance to oppression^ 
 least of all from England and Englishmen, whose dependencies, 
 not always paternally governed, are scattered over every quarter 
 of the globe. 
 
 The right which the Southern States claimed, and by which 
 their rebellion is sought to be justified, is not "the right of revo 
 lution." It is the right to secede without opposition from 
 beneath the supremacy of the Federal Constitution, when, in the 
 j udgment of a portion of their inhabitants the peculiar interests 
 of those States cannot be secured under that Constitution. This 
 pretended right, it will be perceived, strikes at once at the 
 stability of all government, and every people in the world is 
 interested in its rejection. Let us examine into the justness of 
 the pretension, and also into the particular interests which are 
 alleged to have demanded its assertion. 
 
 First, as to the Right of Secession. It is based upon the plea 
 that the American Union is a simple Confederation or league of 
 independent States which, for certain specified purposes, entered 
 
 1 Putnam s Rebellion Record, New York, 1861, quoted also in Rawlins 
 " American Dis-Union, " p. 18. 
 
INDEPENDENT SOVEREIGNTY OF THE STATES. 7 
 
 into an alliance. An examination into the history of the forma 
 tion of the Constitution will prove, we think conclusively, the 
 fallacy of this plea. 
 
 Between the years 1777 and 1788, the thirteen American colo 
 nies, which combined to resist the oppressive legislation of Eng 
 land, were united under certain articles of government, the title of 
 which was " Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union between 
 the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Khode Island 
 and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, 
 Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, 
 South Carolina, and Georgia." The third of these Articles 
 declared that " the said States hereby severally enter into a firm 
 league of friendship with each other." Such a league may be 
 formed at any time between independent States. 
 
 Each State was at liberty, with the consent of Congress, to 
 establish its own custom-houses and revenue laws, to make 
 alliances, to engage in war, to maintain military forces, to levy 
 taxes and imposts, &c. &c. 
 
 No adequate provision was made for the enforcement, by the 
 Congress, of such laws as the States in Congress assembled 
 might enact. The revenues of the country were wholly under 
 the control of the several States, and the only means on which 
 the Congress could rely for the support of the Government were 
 such voluntary grants as the States could be induced to make. 
 In short, the Congress had no power whatever over the people, 
 these being the subjects of the several States, neither had it any 
 authority over the States themselves ; it might request and 
 advise, but it could not command them. 
 
 The insufficiency of such an union as this was painfully 
 manifest during the war of independence even, when the strong 
 bond of a common danger held the States together ; the war 
 ended, Congress commanded no reverence at home, and inspired 
 no respect abroad. Powerless to compel the fulfilment, on the 
 part of its own people, of the stipulations which, in their name, 
 it had made with England at the conclusion of the war, that 
 power refused in turn to execute the terms of the treaty. 
 Washington himself wrote, "The Confederation appears to me 
 little more than a shadow without substance, and Congress a 
 nullity." And when the British Government was applied to by 
 the American Commissioners, in 1785, to enter into a commercial 
 
X 
 
 8 ALLEGED JUSTIFICATION OF SECESSION. 
 
 treaty with the United States, the Duke of Dorset inquired of 
 them whether they had been appointed by Congress, or their 
 respective States, for it appeared to him "that each State was 
 determined to manage matters its own way." 
 
 The inherent and essential vice of the original Confederacy was 
 thus, manifestly and notoriously, the independent sovereignty 
 of the States composing it, and the jealousy with which each 
 maintained its independence ; and also the absence of a proper 
 relationship between the general Government and the people. 
 The wise men of the country saw the necessity of a thorough 
 change. Accordingly, after repeated and earnest appeals from 
 the Congress and the several State Legislatures, a Convention of 
 delegates from the States was held at Philadelphia, in 1787, "for 
 the purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation and Per 
 petual Union between the United States of America, in order to 
 render them adequate to the preservation and support of the Union" 
 The present Constitution is the result of the deliberations of that 
 body, which submitted its work to Congress, accompanied by an 
 explanatory letter, signed by Washington as President of the 
 Convention. This letter declared, "It is obviously imprac 
 ticable in the Federal Government of these States to secure all 
 rights of independent sovereignty to each, and yet provide for 
 the interest and safety of all. In all our deliberations we kept 
 steadily in view that which appears to us the greatest interest of 
 every true American the consolidation of our Union in which 
 is involved our prosperity, safety, perhaps our national existence." 
 These expressions prove conclusively the object which the illus 
 trious framers of the Constitution had in preparing a substitute 
 for the original Articles of Confederation ; instead of a mere 
 " firm league of friendship " between independent and jealous 
 States, they wished to constitute, to consolidate, a nation. Hence 
 they termed their work a " Constitution! 
 
 This Constitution was transmitted by Congress to the Legis 
 latures of the several States, by which, in turn, it was submitted 
 to conventions of delegates, " chosen in each State by the people 
 thereof." Thus, it passed out of the hands of the States into the 
 hands of the people, by whom it was adopted and ratified in the 
 following emphatic terms : " We, the People of the United States, 
 in order to form a more perfect Union (than the old firm league 
 of friendship), establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, pro- 
 
INDEPENDENT SOVEREIGNTY OF THE STATES. 9 
 
 vide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and 
 secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do 
 ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of 
 America." 
 
 It will escape no one that there are many capital differences 
 between the new Constitution and the old Articles of Con 
 federation. These differences strike at the very root, and are 
 evidently intended to remedy the fundamental defects, of the 
 latter, State sovereignty, and the want of controlling authority 
 of the general Government over the people. The Constitution 
 considers itself not as emanating from the States, but as the 
 creation of the people ; from whom it derives, immediately, all 
 its powers, and by whom it was constituted supreme not only 
 over the States, but likewise over the people themselves, as to 
 their persons and their property. Consequently the Constitution 
 recognises the States only as convenient and authorized media of 
 communication and action between itself and the people, so far 
 as the relationship of the people to the National Government is 
 concerned. This, we think, will be evident by comparing the 
 new bond of union between the States with the old. The latter 
 consisted simply of Articles of Confederation ; the former is a 
 Constitution. The old instrument only professed to establish 
 " a firm league of friendship " between independent States ; the 
 new instrument ignores the States entirely, proclaiming itself to 
 have been ordained and established by the people. The old 
 bond was one of " Confederation and perpetual union ; " the new 
 declares its object to be " the formation of a more perfect Union," 
 a union not of the States but of the people, while its framers 
 themselves state that its aim was " the consolidation of the 
 Union! 
 
 But the differences between the old Articles of Confederation 
 and the new Constitution do not stop here. The former declared, 
 "Each State retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, 
 and every power, jurisdiction, and right which is not by this 
 Confederation expressly delegated to the United States in Con 
 gress assembled." But no such delegation was ever made, 
 excepting as temporary loans by express agreement of at least 
 nine of these independent sovereignties ; and throughout the 
 entire instrument the independence of the States was jealously 
 declared and insisted on. The Constitution, on the other hand, 
 
10 ALLEGED JUSTIFICATION OF SECESSION. 
 
 sweeps away from the States and concentrates within itself for 
 ever all the attributes of sovereignty, and delegates them at will ; 
 it expressly says, " The President, Congress, the Judiciary, shall 
 possess " this, that, and the other right and power, and " no State 
 shall " do so and so. Thus, the States, as independent sovereign 
 ties, disappear from the programme ; as such they are not 
 alluded to in the Constitution : the only passage which can be 
 possibly construed into even an implication of their existence as 
 such, occurs in an amendment to the original instrument, as 
 follows : " The powers not delegated to the United States by 
 the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to 
 the States respectively, or to the people. (Art. X. of the Amend 
 ments.) Another Amendment (IX.) exhibits still more clearly 
 the altered theory of government, as compared with that of the 
 Articles of Confederation ; it is as follows : " The enumeration 
 in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to 
 deny or discharge others retained ly the people" Thus, this new 
 Evangel of political liberty proclaims unmistakably that, in 
 government, all power comes exclusively from the people, and 
 should be exercised solely for the benefit of the people. 
 
 The attributes and powers which the people thus reclaimed 
 from the States, and conferred upon the Constitution of their 
 adoption, are to levy and collect taxes, imposts, excises, &c.; to 
 borrow, coin, and regulate the value of, money ; to control foreign 
 and domestic commerce ; to enact naturalisation laws ; to con 
 tract alliances and make treaties : to establish post-offices and 
 post-roads ; to declare war, and to make peace ; to raise and sup 
 port armies and fleets, &c. &c. Even the militia in the different 
 States was directed to be " trained according to the discipline 
 prescribed by Congress." Thus the people vested in the new 
 Constitution the right to consider and treat themselves as its 
 immediate subjects, placing themselves and their property under 
 its direct control, abrogating in its favour the former exclusive 
 sovereignty over themselves of their respective State Govern 
 ments. 
 
 One of the first resolutions of the Convention which framed 
 the Constitution was, " That a National Government ought to be 
 established, consisting of a supreme Legislature, Executive, and 
 Judiciary." And the more one studies the manner in which 
 each of these departments was constituted, the more one is con- 
 
INDEPENDENT SOVEREIGNTY OF THE STATES. 11 
 
 vinced of the supremacy of each, in its particular sphere, over 
 the several States. Without attempting anything like a detailed 
 examination, we desire to indicate one or two important points 
 which appear to us to establish this view. 
 
 Under the Confederation there was no separate Executive 
 hranch of Government. The executive functions were performed 
 by the Legislative body, the Congress, which consisted of from 
 two to seven delegates from each State ; but no important act of 
 sovereignty could be performed by it, unless at least nine of the 
 States in Congress assembled had assented to the same ; and no 
 other question could be decided, excepting that of daily adjourn 
 ment, unless a majority of all the States (not a majority of the 
 delegates) should have agreed thereto. During the recess of the 
 Congress, the executive functions were devolved upon " a Com 
 mittee of the States," appointed by the United States in Congress 
 assembled, consisting of one of the delegates from each State. 
 The Committee of the States, or any nine of them, were autho 
 rized to exercise such of the powers of Congress " as the United 
 States in Congress assembled, by the consent of nine States, 
 should, from time to time, think it expedient to vest them with ; 
 provided that no power be delegated to the said Committee for 
 the exercise of which, by the Articles of Confederation, the voice 
 of nine States in the Congress of the United States assembled is 
 requisite." The sovereignty of the States was thus most jealously 
 guarded. 
 
 On the other hand, under the Constitution a Presidency was 
 established, as the Executive department of the Government. 
 The President was directed to be chosen by a majority of the 
 Electors appointed directly by the people for this very purpose ; 
 and in the event of a majority of these electors not being able to 
 agree upon any one person, the President was then to be chosen 
 (not by the Senate, which represents, to a certain extent, the 
 States, but) by the House of Representatives of the people. Thus 
 the executive head of the nation was elected directly by the 
 people the States, as States, having nothing to do with his 
 election. 
 
 It is pretended that the old supremacy of the States has been 
 virtually recognised and perpetuated under the Constitution, in 
 the mode of organization of the Senate. The Senate, which did 
 not exist under the Articles of Confederation, consists, under 
 
12 ALLEGED JUSTIFICATION OF SECESSION. 
 
 the Constitution, of two persons chosen (not by the people, but) 
 by the Legislature of each State ; and the consent of the Senate 
 is made necessary to the validity of most of the acts of the 
 President, and of the measures passed by the House of Kepre- 
 sentatives, before these can become laws. But this plea amounts 
 to nothing, because the members of the State Legislatures who 
 elect the United States senators are themselves chosen directly 
 by the people of the States. Moreover, the presiding officer of 
 the Senate, who, in the event of a tie- vote among the senators, 
 has a controlling vote over their deliberations, is the Vice- Presi 
 dent of the United States, elected by the people themselves, as 
 is the President. 
 
 The supremacy of the Constitution over the States is still 
 farther proclaimed as follows : " This Constitution and the laws 
 of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, 
 and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the au 
 thority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the 
 land; and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, 
 anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the con 
 trary notwithstanding. The senators and representatives before 
 mentioned (of the United States), and the members of the 
 several State Legislatures, and all the executive and judicial 
 officers, both of the United States and the several States, shall 
 be bound by oath or affirmation to support this Constitution." 
 (Art. VI.) 
 
 Amongst the various powers vested in the Constitution and 
 delegated by it to Congress is that of " calling forth the militia 
 to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and 
 repel invasions." (Art. I. Sect. 8.) Now, what is Secession 
 but insurrection against the laws of the Union? Is it not 
 absurd, then, to pretend that a State possesses, under or from 
 the Constitution, the right of secession, when that very Con 
 stitution imposes upon Congress the duty of " calling forth the 
 militia to execute the laws of the Union and suppress insur 
 rection " ? 
 
 Moreover, it was the universal conviction, both of the friends 
 and the enemies of this new Constitution, that it did absorb all 
 the sovereign attributes which heretofore had been claimed and 
 exercised by the several States of the Confederation. And such 
 continued to be the general opinion until within the last thirty 
 
INDEPENDENT SOVEREIGNTY OF THE STATES. 13 
 
 years, at the South as well as at the North. In fact, Mr. Benton, l 
 a slave-holding senator, has left on record that, until that period, 
 " the leading language south of the Potomac was, that no State 
 had a right to withdraw from the Union ; that it required the 
 same power to dissolve as to form the Union ; and that any 
 attempt to dissolve it, or to obstruct the action of constitutional 
 laws, was treason." 
 
 The Supreme Court, soon after its organization as the legal 
 interpreter and expounder of the Constitution, held the following 
 language in an important case which was submitted to its deci 
 sion : 2 "It has been said that the States were sovereign, were 
 completely independent, and were connected with each other by 
 a league. This is true. But when those allied sovereignties 
 converted their league into a Government, when they converted 
 their Congress of Ambassadors into a Legislature empowered to 
 enact laws, the whole character in which the States appear 
 underwent a change." Such has been the unvarying decision 
 of the Supreme Court, even of those branches of it which belong 
 to Southern districts. 
 
 The public men of the South formerly entertained no doubt 
 on this question. In the Convention of the people of Virginia, 
 Jefferson, who was one of the frarners of the Constitution, 
 opposed its adoption on the ground that it did assume supre 
 macy over the States. Patrick Henry, 3 before the same Con 
 vention, opposed its adoption for the same reason, saying, 
 " If the States ~be not the, agents of this compact, it must be one 
 great consolidated National Government of the people of all the 
 States" And, again, " Have the framers of this Constitution 
 made a proposal of compact between the States ? If they had 
 this would be a confederation ; it is, otherwise, most clearly 
 a Consolidated Government. The whole question turns on that 
 poor little expression, We, the people, instead of tJie States of 
 America." Mr. Madison, 4 one of the most prominent of the 
 framers of the instrument, said of it, before the same Con 
 vention, "Should all the States adopt it, it will then be a 
 Government established by the Thirteen States of America, not 
 
 1 See Ludlow s " History of the United States," p. 103. 
 
 2 " Causes of the American Civil War," by Mr. Motley, p. 10. 
 
 3 Wirt s "Life of Patrick Henry," quoted by fiawlins, op. cit. pp. 63, 64. 
 
 4 Rawlins, p. 65. 
 
14 ALLEGED JUSTIFICATION OF SECESSION. 
 
 through the intervention of the Legislatures, but l>y the people at 
 large! Mason/ in the same Convention, opposed it as fol 
 lows : " Whether the Constitution be good or bad, the present 
 clause (the preamble) clearly discovers that it is to be a 
 National Government and no longer a Confederation of States." 
 Mr. Pinckney, 2 on the other hand, in the Convention of the 
 people of South Carolina, advocated its adoption for this very 
 reason : " This admirable manifesto sufficiently refutes the 
 doctrine of the individual sovereignty and independence of the 
 States." 
 
 After full discussion in conventions of the people of the 
 several States, the Constitution was adopted by all. Judge 
 Story declares that " there was no reservation of any right on 
 the part of any State to dissolve its connexion, or to abrogate 
 its assent, or to suspend, as to itself, the operation of the Con 
 stitution." It was felt and acknowledged that it was adapted to 
 and required by the exigences of the times. All over the land 
 the people approved of it ; they felt that, to acquiesce any 
 longer in the doctrine of the sovereignty of the several States, 
 was to commit political suicide. 
 
 But, it is frequently said, the American people threw off the 
 supremacy of Great Britain because it was no longer agreeable 
 to them ; should their descendants be compelled to submit to 
 the Federal Constitution after it had ceased to subserve their 
 interests ? We reply, the Colonists rebelled against the oppres 
 sive acts of a Government and a Legislature in which they were 
 not represented. The South has never been oppressed ; it has 
 governed the country, in virtue, partly, of its superabundant 
 representation in the National Legislature the slaves who, at 
 the South, are regarded as mere chattels, being counted as men in 
 elections for Congressional Representatives, three-fifths of the 
 slaves being added to the number of the white population of 
 the slave States. Moreover, the Constitution itself provides 
 proper methods for remedying its own defects, and all grievances 
 which may have arisen from abuse or mal-administration of its 
 provisions. (Art. V.) The Constitution has also established a 
 National Judiciary having jurisdiction over all " controversies 
 to which the United States shall be a party ; controversies 
 
 1 Elliott s Debates, quoted by Mr. Sumner, on Our Domestic Relations, p. 513. 
 * Quoted in Ludlow a " History of the United States," p. 14. 
 
INDEPENDENT SOVEREIGNTY OF THE STATES. 15 
 
 between two or more States ; between a State and citizens of 
 another State/ &c. &c. (Art. III.) The seceding States did not 
 resort to any of the constitutional methods thus provided for 
 the redress of their asserted grievances. 
 
 The advocates of the modern doctrine of State sovereignty 
 lay much stress upon the declaration made by the delegates of 
 the people of Virginia, assembled in Convocation to decide upon 
 the adoption or rejection of the proposed Constitution, in 1788, 
 in the following words : " The powers under the Constitution 
 being derived from tJie people of the United States, may be resumed 
 ly them whenever the same shall be perverted to their injury or 
 oppression." We admit this declaration ; and the Constitution, 
 as we have just stated, points out the mode by which " the 
 people of the United States " should make their desires known. 
 But this is a very different doctrine from that of State 
 sovereignty ; indeed, it is completely subversive of the latter. 
 Neither did the seceding States act according to this principle 
 thus formally announced by one of themselves. Not only was 
 the vast majority of " the people of the United States " not 
 consulted on the subject, but they were known to be, and are 
 still, violently opposed to secession. Secession was accom 
 plished by a very small minority of the people of a minority of 
 the States. The question was not submitted at all to tlie people 
 of some of the seceding States ; in all of them it was warmly 
 opposed, and was carried affirmatively only by means of gross 
 violence and intimidation. 1 It is believed, even at the South, 
 that a very large majority of the people were opposed to seces 
 sion. At the Presidential election of 1860, Mr. Breckenridge, 
 the Candidate of the Southern Extremists, received in all the 
 Slave States 436,592 votes ; the other candidates, who were all 
 avowed Unionists, holding different views with regard to the 
 extension of slavery into the territories, received 419,932 votes. 
 If it could have been foreseen that a civil war would have 
 followed upon that election, there is every reason to believe that 
 an overwhelming majority of the people of the Slave States 
 would have voted in support of the Union candidates. In 
 Virginia the vote was 92,900 in their favour, against 74,323 ; 
 
 1 Speeches of Southern refugees at New York, in October, 1862, particularly 
 those of Texans ; Revue des deux Mondts, December, 1860 ; Annuaire des deux 
 Mondes, 1860 ; &c. &c. 
 
16 ALLEGED JUSTIFICATION OF SECESSION. 
 
 in Tennessee 80,624, against 64,709; in Louisiana 27,829, against 
 22,681 ; even in Georgia 54,476, against 51,889. Throughout 
 the South many of the most respectable journals did not hesitate 
 to characterize the secession movement as the work of ambitious 
 politicians whose views found no sympathy with the majority of 
 the people. 1 Mr. Stephens, the actual Vice-President of the 
 Confederacy, held substantially the same language in his speech 
 before the Convention of Georgia, from which we have already 
 quoted. Even in the South Carolina Convention, Mr. Boyce 
 declared : " If secession shall take place, of which I have no 
 idea for I cannot conceive of such stupendous madness I 
 shall consider the institution of slavery as doomed, and that the 
 great God, in our blindness, has made us the instruments of its 
 destruction." The perils of the step were fully exposed by 
 some of the most prominent public men of the South, and by 
 some of the leading journals. Thus The Raleigh Standard, of 
 North Carolina, depicted " the fearful evils which must result 
 from secession repudiation, bankruptcy, beggary, the predo 
 minance of the sword over law, and, the end, abolition." But 
 secession was determined upon by the leaders of the movement. 
 We have dwelt at considerable length on this question of the 
 right of secession, partly on account of its intrinsic interest, and 
 partly because so much importance has been ascribed to it by 
 the advocates of the South in England. Evidently there is no 
 such right to be deduced either from the Constitution of the 
 United States or from the circumstances which led to its forma 
 tion, or from the intentions of its founders. 2 
 
 1 Annuaire des deux Mondes, 1860, pp. 606, 608; Ellison, "Slavery and 
 Secession," p. 67 ; Story, " The American Question," &c. &c. 
 
 2 The preamble of the Confederate Constitution is as follows ": "We, the 
 People of the Confederate States, each State acting in its sovereign and indepen 
 dent character, in order to form a Permanent Federal Government," &c. We have 
 italicised the words which differ from those used in the preamble of the United 
 States Constitution. Now, the Confederate Constitution is almost a verbatim 
 copy of the Constitution of the United States, excepting in certain points. It is 
 evident that, in those points, the wording has been made to differ for the 
 express purpose of creating a corresponding change of meaning and principle. 
 Thus the preamble of the Confederate Constitution shows of itself unmistakably 
 that the Government constituted by that instrument was intended by its framers 
 to differ essentially from that established under the Constitution of the United 
 States. The former was intended to be a Federal Government over Confederate 
 States, " each State acting in its sovereign and independent character." This is 
 
INDEPENDENT SOVEREIGNTY OF THE STATES. 17 
 
 But if the original States of the Union, those which ratified 
 the Constitution at the time of its adoption, can claim no such 
 right, much less can those other States which have entered the 
 Union since that period. The settlers of the present States of 
 Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama, were allowed 
 by the Federal Government to occupy lands within those States 
 when these were territories governed by Congress under the 
 Constitution. When the population of these territories had 
 become sufficiently numerous, they were severally admitted as 
 States, each one having previously submitted its Constitution to 
 Congress for sanction. These States, therefore, never possessed 
 any rights which they did not" acquire under the authorization 
 and sanction of the Federal Government ; surely no one can 
 pretend that one of those rights could have been to violate the 
 Constitution by subverting that Government. 
 
 Again, Florida and Louisiana were purchased the one from 
 Spain, the other from France out of the common treasury of 
 the United States. The chief stipulation in the treaty of pur 
 chase, besides that referring to the payment of the purchase- 
 money, was that the inhabitants of those territories should not 
 be deprived of the rights which they possessed under their old 
 Governments. Very certainly one of those rights was not that 
 of throwing off their allegiance whenever they might see fit ; 
 France and Spain conferred no such right upon their subjects. 
 
 Finally, who is authorized, under the Constitution, to sanc 
 tion or permit the rupture of the Union ? The President and 
 all the other officers of the Government, the members of Con 
 gress, the judges of the courts, the officers of the army and 
 navy, the governor, legislators and judges of each State, are 
 .each and all bound, by solemn oath or affirmation, to uphold the 
 Constitution of the United States as " the supreme law of the 
 
 nothing more than "a firm league of friendship and perpetual union, "as was 
 that formed under the old Articles of Confederation. "We may expect, therefore, 
 to find similar results to follow this new attempt at establishing such a Govern 
 ment, as those which were witnessed under its prototype. *. The differences which 
 we have pointed out may be taken as strong presumptive proof that the framers 
 of the Confederate Constitution were convinced that the Constitution of the United 
 States was drawn up with a different intention from that which governed and 
 actuated themselves in their work, and that it contains no such principle as the 
 sovereignty and independence of the several States, which constitutes the basis 
 of their own. 
 
18 ALLEGED GRIEVANCES OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 land," ordained and established for the declared purpose of form 
 ing a Union "more perfect " than that secured by the Articles of 
 Confederation which itself declared " theUiiion shall be perpetual." 1 
 Our English friends have freely counselled us that it was 
 better to let the South go rather than encounter the evils of 
 civil war. They have never acted, and probably it will be long 
 ere they will act, upon this principle themselves. Sir Eobert 
 Peel said, in 1843, at the time of the Irish agitation for the 
 repeal of the Union : " Deprecating as I do all war, and espe 
 cially civil war, yet there is no alternative which I do not think 
 preferable to the dismemberment of the British empire." But 
 what an insignificant loss would the loss of Ireland have been to 
 Great Britain, compared with that of the Southern States to the 
 rest of the Union. The former event would have left no long line 
 of frontier exposed ; it would have involved no increase of mili 
 tary forces, nor of custom-house officials ; it would have occasioned 
 the giving up of no immense line of internal navigation to the 
 command of an enemy ; nor would it have annihilated the cohesive 
 affinities of the remaining elements of the empire. The loss of 
 Ireland, from a repeal of the Union, would, in all probability, have 
 been a temporary loss only ; the successful revolt of the Southern 
 States would be an immense and a permanent evil to the United 
 States, not so much from the mere material diminution of terri 
 tory and population, as for other reasons just hinted at. And 
 besides, it would be the prelude to the establishment of a mili 
 tary " Slave Bepublic," before whose rapacity and despotism all 
 that we read of Eoman or Moslem dominion pales. 
 
 Secondly, as to the grievances which the English admirers of 
 the South allege in justification of the rebellion. "We have 
 already quoted the testimony of the Southern Vice-President in 
 proof that there was no sufficient grievance ; nevertheless, we 
 desire to refute the two most important charges made against 
 
 1 On the question of the Right of Secession, consult "The Madison Papers ;" 
 Elliott s " Debates;" The Federalist; Story s "Commentaries, &c. ;" also the 
 following recent pamphlets: "Causes of the American Civil War," by Hon. 
 J. L. Motley, London, 1861; "The American Question," by W. W. Story, 
 London, 1862 ; An Article on " Our Domestic Relations," by Mr. Simmer, in the 
 Atlantic Monthly Magazine, Oct. 1863 ; "The League of States," by B. J. Lossing, 
 New York, 1863 ; Bacon s " Guide to American Politics," London, 1863 ; 
 Rawlins on "American Dis-Union," London, 1862, a most able and critical 
 resume of the question. 
 
NON-EXECUTION OF FUGITIVE-SLAVE LAWS. 19 
 
 the North, the non-execution of the Fugitive-Slave laws, and 
 the imposition of oppressive and injurious Tariffs. 
 
 The Fugitive- Slave Laws. The original clause in the Consti 
 tution concerning the return of fugitive slaves is as follows : 
 " No person held to service or labour in one State, under the 
 laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any 
 law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or 
 labour, but shall be delivered on claim of the party to whom 
 such service or labour is due." (Art. IV. Sect. 2.) The enacting 
 of this clause was not accompanied by any grant of power to 
 enforce it ; it stands on the same footing as the clause immedi 
 ately preceding it, on the rendition of fugitives from justice, 
 namely, as a compact between the States, to be fulfilled on the 
 requisition of the Executive of the State from which the cri 
 minal or the fugitive may have escaped. 
 
 In 1793, five years after the Constitution was adopted, an Act 
 was passed providing, for the first time, for the execution of both 
 these clauses. So little attention did the subject excite, how 
 ever, that, it is said, twenty-six years elapsed before a single 
 slave was surrendered under the Act. 1 Indeed, the whole history 
 of the introduction of the original clause into the Constitution, 
 shows that, as Mr. Sumner says, the slave-owners attached but 
 very little importance to the matter. 
 
 In 1801, a motion was made in Congress to substitute a new 
 Act for that of 1793, but the idea was abandoned, as was also 
 another attempt made in 1817-18. 
 
 In 1850, at the time of the admission of California as a free 
 State, the present fugitive-slave law was enacted, as an important 
 element of a series of compromise measures. Its author was 
 Mr. Mason, of Virginia, late Confederate Commissioner to 
 London. 
 
 We admit that it has always been difficult to enforce these 
 laws ; in many instances attempts to execute them have failed, 
 partly by the interference of the people, partly by the refusal 
 of the State officials to lend any assistance whatever to the 
 officers of the general Government, and partly in consequence 
 of the interposition by the States of direct obstacles. We by 
 no means wish to uphold either individuals or societies in 
 
 1 Mr. Summer s Speech on his motion to repeal the Fugitive-Slave Act of 1850, 
 in the Senate, 1852. 
 
 c 2 
 
20 ALLEGED GRIEVANCES OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 disobedience to any law of the land. We desire to point out, 
 however, that there are very many facts connected with the laws 
 in question, which explain and palliate the opposition made to 
 them. 
 
 The law of 1793 was, in the judgment of the Supreme 
 Court, radically defective, inasmuch as it devolved its enforce 
 ment upon State authorities. It was a Federal law, and, con 
 sequently, ought to depend for its execution upon Federal judges 
 and officers. 1 
 
 The law of 1850 is open to still more grave objections. By 
 its language it makes no discrimination as to colour, race or 
 class, beyond the sweeping designation of "persons held to 
 service or labour ; " it commits the decision of the claim, on the 
 part of the owner of the slave, to the judgment of a mere petty 
 magistrate appointed by the Court, holding office only during 
 the pleasure of the Court, receiving no fixed salary, and exposed 
 to the temptation of giving a dishonest judgment by the promise 
 of a double fee, if he should condemn the fugitive to be returned 
 to slavery. But, more monstrous still, it refuses to the defendant 
 the privilege of habeas corpus and of trial by jury. On these two 
 last grounds the law has been pronounced unconstitutional. 
 
 As to the writ of habeas corpus ; it is ordered by the Constitu 
 tion that " the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be 
 suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the 
 public safety may require it" (Art. I. Sect. 9). This provision 
 must, of course, apply to all persons, and by the Constitution 
 even slaves are persons. 
 
 The Constitution of the United States expressly terms slaves 
 persons (Art. I. Sect. 2) ; even the fugitive-slave clause of the 
 Constitution speaks of the slave as a person? The Constitution 
 farther declares that " no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, 
 or property, without due process of law " (Art. V.) ; now, as all 
 negroes, or persons of colour, found in the free States are pre 
 sumably free, they cannot, according to this provision, be 
 deprived of their liberty without due process of law. Again, 
 the Constitution provides that, "in suits at common law, where 
 the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of 
 trial by jury shall be preserved " (Amendments, Art. VII.) ; upon 
 
 1 Mr. Stunner s Speech. 2 See the clause already quoted. 
 
NON-EXECUTION OF FUGITIVE-SLAVE LAWS. 21 
 
 this clause also the law might be resisted, for it may safely be 
 predicated that the value of any runaway slave, whom his 
 owner would take the trouble to reclaim, would " exceed twenty 
 dollars." 
 
 The Supreme Court of the United States 1 has given the fol 
 lowing recorded decisions, which seem to be incompatible with 
 the fugitive-slave law of 1850 : 1st. That " a suit is the prosecu 
 tion of some claim, demand, or request." The claim of a master 
 for an alleged fugitive slave is, then, a suit ; 2d. That suits at 
 common law comprise, " not merely suits which the common law 
 recognises among its old and settled proceedings, but suits in 
 which legal rights are to be ascertained and determined." 
 Certainly, then, the ascertaining and determining the right of 
 a person to his liberty must be done by a suit at common 
 law ; 3d. In a case in which the appellants were petitioners for 
 freedom, the Supreme Court said : " The matter in dispute is the 
 freedom of the petitioners. This is not susceptible of pecuniary 
 valuation. No doubt is entertained of the jurisdiction of the 
 Court." We may, therefore, safely contend that the fugitive- 
 slave law of 1850 is an unconstitutional law, inasmuch as it 
 ignores, to the prejudice of alleged fugitive slaves, who are per 
 sons in the eye of the Constitution, the all-important rights to 
 the privileges of habeas corpus and trial by jury, to which that 
 instrument entitles them. 
 
 But not only did this law appear to the people of the free 
 States a flagrant violation of the Constitution, against liberty 
 and in favour of slavery ; it outraged them in other ways. It 
 was retrospective in its operation, without any limit as to time ; 
 slaves whose owner had died since their escape, could be claimed 
 by a new master, whose property they had become by inheritance, 
 or by purchase. More than this. So hostile had the modern 
 legislation of the slave States become to emancipation, that 
 slaves who had virtually been freed by their masters, and who 
 had every right to consider themselves free, were liable, in conse 
 quence of some flaw in their manumission, to be pursued and 
 claimed, either by State authorities, or by some new owner, or 
 pretended owner. So great was the terror which the passage of 
 the law excited amongst the coloured immigrants in the free 
 States, that no one considered himself safe, no matter how long 
 
 1 Mr. Simmer s Speech. 
 
22 ALLEGED GRIEVANCES OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 lie might have resided therein. " Mr. Palfrey l says that 130 
 communicants of a single church in Buffalo, New York, escaped 
 to Canada ; that the coloured Baptist church in Rochester, in the 
 same State, lost all but two of its 114 communicants ; that 
 the coloured Baptist church in Detroit, Michigan, lost eighty-four 
 communicants." 
 
 Again, as Mr. Sumner finely observes, " The law lacked that 
 essential support in the Public Conscience of the States in 
 which it was to be enforced, which is the life of all law, and 
 without which all law must become a dead letter." Every 
 human being in those States felt that a poor wretch, " God s 
 image, though carved in ebony," who, to escape a slave s chain, 
 or a slave s punishment, or the recollection of a slave s punish 
 ment, had surmounted all the difficulties in the way of his 
 deliverance the swamp, the forest, the armed patrol, the chance 
 passer-by, the hunger and thirst, the hunter and the hounds, 
 had richly earned the right to be free for ever. 2 
 
 The religious sentiment also of the free States was outraged 
 by this law. Thanks to Southern agitation, every one there had 
 learned that the Bible declares to him, " Thou shalt not deliver 
 unto his master the servant which is escaped from his master 
 unto thee ; he shall dwell with thee, even among you, in that 
 place which he shall choose in one of thy gates, where it liketli 
 him best." The modern apologists for Slavery, one of the latest 
 of whom is the London Times, pretend, indeed, that St. Paul 
 gives a later and a more reliable revelation of the mind of the 
 Almighty, and directs that fugitive slaves shall be restored to 
 their masters. But we are persuaded that any one, not a slave 
 holder, who will carefully read the celebrated epistle of St. 
 Paul to Philemon, can draw from it only this conviction, viz. : 
 that no Christian has a right to hold a fellow-Christian as a 
 slave, but that he is commanded to substitute for the Pagan and 
 Jewish chain of slavery the Christian bond of brotherhood ; to 
 look upon a slave as no more u a servant, but above a servant, a 
 brother beloved" 
 
 But notwithstanding all these legitimate objections to the 
 fugitive-slave law, on the part of the people of the free States 
 
 1 Ludlow s " History of the United States," p. 242. 
 
 2 See remarks of Mr. Olmsted on the hardships and dangers encountered by run 
 away negroes, in his b< Travels through the Seaboard Slave States, "pp< 150-lo 3, &c. 
 
NON-EXECUTION OF FUGITIVE-SLAVE LAWS. 23 
 
 it was the law, and they submitted to it. In the vast majority 
 of instances in which a fugitive was claimed, and the claim 
 properly authenticated and established, he was permitted to be 
 taken away by his owner. After all, the grievance was pitifully 
 small. The Superintendent of the Census Bureau states that 
 in 1860, only 803 Slaves made their escape out of the almost 
 4,000,000 of servile population a little more than one-fiftieth 
 of one per cent. Many of these took refuge in the everglades 
 and swamps of Florida, North Carolina and other Slave states ; 
 many betook themselves to Mexico ; a very small proportion 
 found shelter in the free States and in Canada. Moreover, if the 
 escape and the non-recovery of fugitive slaves has been a grievance 
 under the Union, of which the law was made to favour the owner, 
 what would be the case if the South should become independent 
 and surrounded by free States all favourable to the runaway ? 
 
 It is evident, then, that the grievance complained of was 
 trifling, as against the North, and that the remedy which the 
 South has applied to it is an infinite aggravation, so far as the 
 mere loss of slave property is concerned. The non-compliance 
 with the fugitive- slave law was urged, not as a grievance against 
 the North, but as a convenient pretext for exciting the jealousy 
 and animosity of the slave-owners and their adherents. That 
 this is the fact, is evident from the manner in which Mr. 
 Stephens alludes to the matter, in the quotation we have already 
 given from his speech, Moreover, in the Convention of South 
 Carolina which determined upon secession, in 1860, Mr. Ehett 
 declares, " Secession is nothing produced by Mr. Lincoln s elec 
 tion or the non-execution of the fugitive-slave law. It is a matter 
 which has been gathering head for thirty years." l Other 
 speakers corroborated this statement. 
 
 It often happens that those who are most indignant at any 
 and every infraction of the law against themselves, are the least 
 observant of their own duties, and least considerate of the rights 
 of others. So it has been in the conduct of the slave-owners. 
 All over the slave States, Northern travellers and residents, 
 guiltless of any intention or desire to interfere in any way with 
 "the peculiar institution," free even from any taint of aboli 
 tionism, have in many instances been subjected to annoyance, 
 ill-treatment, personal violence, and forcible ejection from the 
 
 1 Speech of Mr. Sunnier, on the Keljclliou, &c., Nov. 27, 1861. 
 
24 ALLEGED GRIEVANCES OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 State in which they happened to be ; others have been put to 
 death. The mails have been violated in search of suspected 
 abolition documents, newspapers or private letters. Southern 
 journals have repeatedly advocated the promise of a pecuniary 
 reward for the heads of well-known Northern men opposed to 
 slavery ; the head of Mr. Seward, the present Secretary of State, 
 was appraised at fifty thousand dollars. Public meetings at the 
 South have advocated similar proceedings ; a committee of vigi 
 lance of Louisiana, in 1835, offered, in the Louisiana Journal, 
 fifty thousand dollars to any one who would deliver into their 
 hands Arthur Tappan, a merchant of New York ; in the same 
 year a public meeting in Alabama offered a similar reward for 
 the delivery to them of Arthur Tappan, and a Methodist clergy 
 man, of New York. In 1831, the Legislature of Georgia passed 
 a law, and the Governor of the State approved of it, appropriating 
 five thousand dollars " to be paid to any person who shall arrest, 
 bring to trial, and prosecute to conviction under the laws of this 
 State, the editor or publisher of a certain paper called the 
 Liberator, published at the town of Boston and State of Massa 
 chusetts." The editor in question had never set his foot in 
 Georgia, and in his journal he had sedulously and on principle 
 abstained from any appeal to the slaves themselves. The halls 
 of the National Congress were frequently the theatre of similar 
 denunciations. Senator Hammond, of South Carolina, said, " I 
 warn the abolitionists, ignorant infatuated barbarians as they 
 are, that if chance shall throw any of them into our hands, they 
 may expect a felon s death." - 1 
 
 South Carolina was the only State whose ordinance justifying 
 secession makes special mention of the non-execution of the 
 fugitive-slave law as a grievance against the North. 2 The most 
 important charge made in this manifesto, that " in none of the 
 free States has the State Government complied with the stipu 
 lations made in the Constitution " concerning the restoration of 
 fugitive slaves, is notoriously untrue. But South Carolina, of 
 all the slave States, has the least reason to complain, even of 
 this, because she has suffered little, if any, loss by the escape of 
 slaves, South Carolina, of all the States of the Union, has the 
 
 1 Speech of Mr. Sumner, on the Barbarism of Slavery, United States Senate, 
 1860. 
 
 2 Bacon s " Guide to American Politics," p. 54. 
 
NON-EXECUTION OF FUGITIVE-SLAVE LAWS. 25 
 
 smallest right, from her own example, to find fault with any 
 other of being unfaithful to any constitutional obligation. Luke 
 warm in fighting the War of Independence from 1775 to 1783 ; x 
 reluctant in adopting the Constitution in 1788 ; unscrupulous 
 violator of the Constitution since 1823, 2 by the enactment and 
 enforcement of a law under which all free persons of colour, 
 though citizens of the North, arriving at the port of Charleston 
 have been imprisoned until the departure of the ship to which 
 they belonged, and, in default of payment of the expenses of their 
 detention, have been liable to " be seized and taken as absolute 
 slaves ; " again violating the Constitution by passing another law 
 which deprives these citizens of the North of the privilege of 
 the writ of haheas corpus; violating again the spirit, not only of 
 the Constitution of the United States, but of all merciful and 
 humane legislation, by another statute, forbidding, under severe 
 penalties, any person in the State from accepting a commission 
 to befriend these oppressed seamen, and prohibiting, under the 
 penalty even of imprisonment for life, " any person, on his own 
 behalf, or by virtue of any authority from any State, to enter 
 
 1 The vote of South Carolina was at first given against the Declaration of 
 Independence, and her assent was finally obtained only for the sake of securing a 
 seeming unanimity in favour of that Act (Speech of Senator Sumner, New York, 
 Nov. 27, 1861). During the war of the Revolution, South Carolina, with a 
 population of 249,073 (in 1790), furnished only 5,508 Continental troops and 
 militia for the general defence ; while Massachusetts, with a population of 
 378,717 (in 1790), furnished 83,092 of such soldiers. The Southern States, with 
 an aggregate population of 1,852,504 (in 1790), of which, perhaps, 650,000 were 
 slaves (the slave population of all the States, in 1790, was 697,897), furnished 
 71,130 soldiers for the Revolutionary War ; the Northern States, with an aggregate 
 population of 1,786,489, provided 218,553 soldiers. ("Report of the Governor 
 of Massachusetts," Feb. 3, 1863, compared with the "National Almanac," of 
 1863, p. 307. 
 
 2 Mr. Sumner s " Speech on the Barbarism of Slavery," pp. 51-53. The Consti 
 tution declares that "The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the 
 privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States." (Art. IV. Sect. II.) 
 Now, at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, all free, native-born 
 inhabitants of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and 
 even of North Carolina, even though descended from African slaves, were not 
 only citizens of those States, but voted on equal terms with other citizens. (See 
 the Opinion of Mr. Justice Curtis, in the Dred Scott case, quoted by Mr. Liver- 
 more in his "Historical Research," Boston, 1863.) Consequently, so far as the free 
 negroes of those States were concerned, the law of South Carolina violated the 
 Constitution, as was declared at the time by the Attorney-General of the United 
 States, a Virginian, and by Mr. Justice Johnson, of the Supreme Court, a South 
 Carolinian. (Mr. Simmer s Speech, p. 51.) 
 
26 ALLEGED GRIEVANCES OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 the State of South Carolina for a similar purpose ; l in open 
 arms against the Constitution in 1832, on the Tariff question : 
 South Carolina has been always, and at all times the dme damnd 
 of all hostility to the Constitution of the United States, the 
 fomenter of discord, sectional hatred, and disunion. The slave 
 States, least of all South Carolina, had no right, therefore, to 
 expect that the North would show them any favour against 
 fugitives from slavery. The Northern people exercised not 
 only their legal right, but performed their duty to humanity, in 
 insisting in every instance that the claimant of the fugitive 
 should establish his claim in the most unimpeachable manner, 
 before they consented to the surrender of the victim. 
 
 The Tariff. In the United States, no one pretended that the 
 South was injured or aggrieved by the Tariff system. No 
 allusion whatever is made to this in any of the Southern mani 
 festoes justifying their secession. It was invented exclusively 
 for foreign, especially for English, markets. 
 
 The mere fact, which is universally admitted, and which is 
 convincingly established by Mr. Stephens, in the speech from 
 which we have quoted, that the South has had the government 
 of the United States in its own hands, would be sufficient proof 
 that, if the slave States have been the victims of the Tariff 
 policy, they have been willing victims. But this fact can be 
 otherwise demonstrated. 
 
 In 1789, in the first session of Congress, after the adoption of 
 the Constitution, one of the first measures proposed was a Bill 
 levying duties 011 foreign goods imported, " for the support of 
 Government, for the discharge of the public debt, and the en 
 couragement and protection of manufactures" All the Southern 
 Congressmen voted in favour of this Bill. The leader of the 
 House was Mr. Madison, of Virginia. In 1790, the duties were 
 increased by the votes of 88 per cent, of the Southern and of 
 60 per cent, of the Northern Representatives. In 1794, an 
 unanimous vote imposed an additional impost. In 1797, imposts 
 were again augmented by 79 per cent, of Northern, and 71 per 
 cent, of Southern votes. In 1804, an unanimous Southern vote, 
 with 61 per cent, of Northern votes, imposed additional duties. In 
 1812, a further increase of imposts was directed by 73 per cent, of 
 Southern, and 51 per cent, of Northern Representatives, 75 per 
 
 1 Mr. Simmer s "Speech on the Barbarism of Slavery." 
 
THE TARIFF. 27 
 
 cent, of Southern, and 62 per cent of Northern Senators. Pre 
 vious to this date, the vote in the Senate had been unanimous in 
 favour of augmentations of duties. In 1816 a new increase was 
 voted by the Senate unanimously ; in the House, by 80 per cent, of 
 the Northern, and 39 per cent, of the Southern delegation, led by 
 Mr. Calhoun himself. This was pre-eminently a protective Tariff. 
 
 In 1824, under the leading of Mr. Clay, of slave-holding 
 Kentucky, a permanent system, as it was intended, of protection 
 was inaugurated. The Senate passed the Bill without a division ; 
 in the House of Representatives it was carried by only three 
 votes, while nineteen votes were given in favour of it by Southern 
 representatives. Again, in 1828, the average rate of duties was 
 increased several per cent, by the votes of 26 per cent, of Southern, 
 and 82 per cent, of Northern, Senators, and 21 per cent, of 
 Southern, and 75 per cent, of Northern, Representatives. In the 
 House of Representatives it was carried by a majority of eleven 
 votes, while seventeen Southern Representatives supported the 
 measure. Even in 1835, a reduction in the rate of imposts was 
 opposed by 38 per cent, of Southern, "and only 32 per cent, of 
 Northern, Representatives. 1 
 
 Northern capital had at first been most largely invested in 
 commerce; but as the tendency of Congressional legislation 
 seemed to be getting more and more favourable to the protection 
 of domestic manufactures, Northern capitalists devoted more and 
 more of their means to that branch of industry. On the con 
 trary, gradually at the South public opinion became opposed to 
 protection. Mr. Benton, 2 long a Senator from the slave State 
 of Missouri, gives the following explanation of this change. He 
 says that, in the colonial days, the South had been richer than 
 the North ; but, as time wore on, " Northern towns became great 
 cities, Southern States remained stationary, or actually decayed, 
 and Charlston, the principal port of the South, was less flourish 
 ing before than after the Revolution, and this in spite of a 
 Southern export, since that event, to the value of eight hundred 
 millions of dollars." The South, though possessing infinite re 
 sources and appliances for the establishment of manufacturing 
 industry, including the monopoly of cotton, became convinced 
 
 1 See a full report of the votes 011 the American Tariff Bills, in the London 
 Daily Neivs, Sept. 8, 1863. 
 
 2 Ludlow s "History of the United States," pp. 12-34, 
 
28 ALLEGED GRIEVANCES OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 that her people could never become anything more than pro 
 ducers of raw material for other nations. Then, as since, her 
 retrogression was ascribed, by herself, to the imposts which she 
 herself had originated and maintained. But, as Mr. Bentoii 
 shows, a protective tariff was really established only in 1816, 
 while the decay of the South had been steadily accelerating since 
 the Eevolutionary War, under the ban and blight of an ever- 
 increasing slave population. 
 
 The highest rate of protection ever imposed was by the Bill of 
 1842, which was supported by 26 per cent, of Northern, and 
 18 per cent, of Southern, Eepresentatives ; amongst the latter 
 was Mr. Stephens, the actual Vice-President of the Southern 
 Confederacy, who opposed the, repeal of this law in 1846. In 
 short, the South could at any time have prevented the enact 
 ment of any law for high imposts, had her Congressmen united 
 with the Northern opponents of such a measure. But this has 
 never been the case. Hence Mr. Calhoun, 1 always meditating 
 schemes for securing Southern independence, in furtherance of 
 slavery, exclaimed in 1833, that it was impossible to unite the 
 Southern States on the Tariff question, and that thenceforth the 
 basis of a common Southern opposition to the North must be 
 sought for in slavery. 
 
 Mr. Stephens, in his speech before the Georgia Convention, 
 placed this pretended grievance of the South in its true light, as 
 follows : 2 " When I entered public life in 1832, South Caro 
 lina threatened to leave the Union on the Tariff question ; but 
 the difficulty was smoothed down, and we have not had, since 
 1833, any cause of complaint. The present tariff (of 1857) was 
 voted for by South Carolina as well as Massachusetts. It is, 
 therefore, untrue to say that the South is obliged to pay arbitrary 
 duties imposed by the North, since the Representatives of Massa 
 chusetts were unanimous in modifying those duties as the South 
 desired." 
 
 1 Ludlow s " History of the United States," p. 148. 
 
 It is interesting to note that the South was willing enough that the chief part 
 (86 per cent.) of the Public Debt resulting from the War of the Revolution and 
 of 1812, should be paid by the North in the shape of Customs and Revenue. It 
 was not until 1833, when this Debt had been paid, and all fear of a resort to 
 direct taxation had passed away, that Mr. Calhoun, who had voted in favour of 
 the Tariff Bill of 1816, took ground against the hitherto received policy of the 
 country, which the South had itself established. 
 
 2 See " Les Etats-Uuis en 1863," par M. Bigelow, Paris, 1863. 
 
THE TARIFF. 29 
 
 Thus a tariff for protection to domestic manufactures was 
 originally a Southern measure, and the South has always advo 
 cated a tariff for revenue. Why ? Simply because it is for the 
 interest of the slave States that the Government should be supported 
 lyy a system of indirect rather than of direct taxation. According 
 to the Constitution, direct taxes are to be levied, not only upon 
 the free population of the States, but also upon " three-fifths of 
 all other persons/ i.e. slaves (Art. I. Sect. 2). Consequently this 
 mode of collecting a revenue would fall most heavily upon the 
 slave States. Not only would the poor whites, who form, as we 
 shall hereafter show, much the largest class of the white popu 
 lation of those States, be taxed beyond their means (of which 
 they have none), but the small body of slave-owners would 
 be compelled to pay for their millions of slaves. They felt, at 
 the time of the formation of the Constitution, that this would be 
 a burden too grievous to be borne. And even now, though the 
 finances of the South are in need of every cent which can be 
 obtained, the legislators, who are at the same time the proprietors 
 of the land and of the slaves, have hitherto refused to allow 
 that this property shall be taxed. On the other hand, under the 
 operation of the tariff system of the Union, the population of the 
 slave States have been obliged to pay for the support of the 
 Government only in proportion to the amount of foreign mer 
 chandise which they have voluntarily purchased. Mr. Stephens, 
 in his speech, has stated that amount at less than one-third of 
 that paid by the Northern people. This astonishing fact, after 
 all the assertions concerning this pretended grievance, will be 
 readily understood, when we shall have contrasted the character 
 and condition of the two populations, as we shall do on subse 
 quent pages. 
 
 Thus, then, the tariff, so far from being a discriminating tax, 
 levied by the North at the expense of the South, has been just 
 the reverse. In all the legislation on this subject, the South has 
 had the advantage of sending to the general Congress a repre 
 sentation based, according to the Constitution (Art. I. Sec. 2), not 
 only upon its white population, but also upon three-fifths of its 
 slaves, thereby increasing its congressional vote. And, inasmuch 
 as all taxes levied upon commodities for consumption must 
 necessarily fall upon the consumers of the same, these taxes 
 have been paid chiefly by the thriving and industrious free popu- 
 
OU THE TRUE MOTIVE OF SECESSION. 
 
 lation of the North, and not by the few slave-owners, and the 
 millions of poor whites and slaves of the South, who consume a 
 very small amount of taxable commodities. If the tariff has 
 been oppressive, the oppression has been borne and willingly 
 borne by the North. The tariff laws have, indeed, materially 
 lessened the expenses of the Southern proprietors and the whole 
 Southern white population in two ways : First, they have re 
 duced the quota of Southern contributions far below what they 
 would have been under a system of direct taxation ; and they 
 have levied these contributions upon that class only of the 
 population which was able to pay them (in exchange for foreign 
 luxuries consumed). Secondly, by the aid and stimulus given to 
 domestic industry, they have enabled the American manufac 
 turer to supply the mass of the population, including the slaves, 
 with all the articles which they need, at a lower rate than these 
 could have been made abroad and delivered at the South. In 
 fact, the coarse cottons and woollens, the shoes, the agricultural 
 implements and machinery, the domestic utensils and tools for 
 mechanics, such as are most needed in the slave States, are 
 manufactured in America, and sold in English colonial markets 
 cheaper than they can be supplied from England. Hence, even 
 in the event of Southern independence, self-interest will compel 
 the South to supply most of its wants from the Northern States. 
 
 As to " the infamous Morrill Tariff," it was itself an effect of 
 secession ; it could never have been adopted, had Southern Con 
 gressmen remained in Washington. 
 
 We are thus brought to consider the only serious cause of 
 discord and disunion which has existed between the North and 
 the South, viz. " the peculiar institution " of the latter, and 
 the principles and policy which it has engendered. This has 
 always been a source of disagreement between the people of the 
 two sections. It was this which made some of the Southern 
 Colonies lukewarm, if not hostile, towards the war for Inde 
 pendence. 1 It was this which made the Carolinas and Georgia 
 
 1 John Adams said in a letter to General Gates, in 1776, "All our misfortunes 
 arise from a sirgle source : the resistance of the Southern Colonies to Republican 
 Government." (Adams Works, vol. i. p. 207.) During the Revolutionary War, 
 Baron de Kalb expressed surprise to General Marion, a South Carolina patriot, 
 that "so many South Carolinians were running to take British protection." 
 General Marion replied as follows : "The people of Carolina form two classes 
 the rich and the poor. The rich are generally very rich ; afraid to stir lest the 
 
TO PERPETUATE SLAVERY. 31 
 
 insist upon the insertion into the Constitution of certain clauses 
 which made it a contradiction to itself. 1 It was this which led 
 them also to refuse, as we shall presently show, that all the 
 public territory should be for ever free territory. The only 
 question which has at any time seriously endangered the 
 maintenance of the Union, has been that of slavery. 2 It was 
 the determination to uphold and extend slavery, which impelled 
 the South to demand the admission into the Union, as slave 
 States, of Missouri, in 1818-20, and of California in 1848-50 ; 
 in both these instances civil war was averted only by com 
 promise measures, the North yielding a certain portion of its 
 rights in both. In short, slavery has been, ever since 1820, the 
 most serious question in the domestic politics of the United 
 States, and it has influenced, directly and indirectly, the foreign 
 policy of the Government more than any other. 
 
 It is perfectly evident, from the declarations of Southern 
 journals and public men, and religious and political bodies, and 
 from the manifestos of the seceding States themselves, that 
 slavery, and nothing but slavery, has been the determining 
 cause of the present civil war. 
 
 The Alabama Ordinance of Secession, for example, reads as 
 follows : 3 
 
 " Whereas, the election of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin to the 
 offices of President and Vice-President of the United States of America, 
 by a sectional party avowedly hostile to the domestic institutions and the 
 peace and security of the people of the State of Alabama, following upon 
 the heels of many and dangerous infractions of the Constitution of the 
 
 British should burn their houses and carry off their negroes." (Helper s 
 " Impending Crisis," p. 186.) 
 
 J In the discussions on the adoption of the Constitution, in 1787, it was from 
 South Carolina that the proviso for the restoration of fugitive slaves came. And 
 the delegates from the Carolinas and from Georgia declared unequivocally that if 
 the slave-trade should be absolutely prohibited, as w?s at first intended, those 
 States would not accept the Constitution, nor join the proposed Union. (Elliott s 
 "Debates on the adoption of the Constitution.") 
 
 2 The Nullification step of South Carolina was not really a serious danger to 
 the Union, because that State stood alone ; the slave States were opposed to her, 
 and President Jackson, a slave-holder himself, took prompt and decided measures. 
 But Jackson clearly saw through that attempt. He wrote of it, " The tariff was 
 only the pretext, and disunion and a Southern Confederacy the real object. The 
 next pretext will be the negro or slavery question." (Mr. Sumner s Speech.) 
 
 3 Bacon s "Guide to American Politics, " in which the Secession Ordinances 
 of different States are reprinted. 
 
32 THE TRUE MOTIVE OF SECESSION. 
 
 United States, by many of the States and people of the Northern section, 
 is a political wrong of so insulting and menacing a character as to justify 
 the people of the State of Alabama in the adoption of prompt and decided 
 measures for their future peace and security ; 
 
 Therefore, be it declared and ordained, by the people of the State of 
 Alabama, in Convention assembled, that the State of Alabama now with 
 draws from the Union," &c. &c. 
 
 A letter addressed by the Presbyterian Synods at the South, 
 " to all the Churches of the World," declares that " it is the 
 antagonism between the South and the North on the subject of 
 slavery which is at the root of all the difficulties that have 
 brought about the rupture of the Union and the horrors of this 
 unnatural war." ] 
 
 The Eev. Dr. Palmer, 2 a distinguished Presbyterian divine of 
 New Orleans, proclaimed from his pulpit, on the 29th Nov. 
 1860, the following sentiments : " In this great struggle we 
 uphold the cause of God and religion. The spirit of abolitionism 
 is unequivocally atheistical. Our mission is to preserve, and to 
 transmit to posterity our system of slavery, and to obtain for it 
 the right to go and take root wherever nature and Providence 
 can transport it. ... We cannot be satisfied with anything 
 short of its extension. The position of the South at this 
 moment is sublime. If she receive from God the grace to com 
 prehend her mission, she will save herself by saving America 
 and the world," &c. 
 
 The Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the South, 
 in their Pastoral Letter of November 22, 1862, declared that 
 the Confederate States, " having thrown off the hateful and 
 infidel pestilence of abolitionism, are about to plant their 
 national life on slavery." 
 
 The secular press of the South has been, if possible, even 
 more explicit. We have already seen that one of its leading 
 editors 3 has proclaimed, in an essay of great notoriety, that 
 " the South is in the process of forming a slave republic." And 
 after philosophising on the antagonistic difference of Northern 
 and Southern societies, he adds, " Such, then, being the nature 
 of the contest, the Union has been disrupted in the effort of 
 slave society to emancipate itself." 
 
 1 " L Amerique devant 1 Europe," par M. de Gasparin. 
 
 2 London Daily News, August 8, 1863. 
 
 3 Mr. Spratt s " Essay on the Philosophy of Secession. " 
 
THE PERPETUATION OP SLAVERY. 33 
 
 The Vice-President of the Confederacy 1 has boldly avowed the 
 same truth in the following words : 
 
 "Our new Constitution has put at rest for ever all the agitating 
 questions relating to our peculiar institution, African slavery, as it exists 
 among us the proper status of the negro iu 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. . . . The foundations of our 
 new Government 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 new 
 Government is the first in the history of the world based upon this great 
 physical, philosophical, and moral truth," &c. &c. 
 
 We also have a very strong corroborative evidence as to the 
 real cause and object of Secession, in the fact that slavery is 
 expressly recognised as a system, or "institution," and its 
 extension provided for, in the Confederate Constitution. The 
 Constitution of the United States terms slaves "persons held to 
 service or labour ; " the Constitution of the Confederate States 
 calls them, plainly, " slaves " (Art. I. Sect, 2, Sect. 9 ; Art. IV. 
 Sect. 2). The former nowhere recognises "the wild and guilty 
 phantasy that man can hold property in man ; " the latter 
 expressly declares "the citizens of each State shall have the 
 right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy 
 with their slaves and otJier property, and the right of property in 
 such slams shall not thereby be impaired " (Art. IV. Sect. 2). 
 The old Constitution makes no provision for the extension of 
 slavery, but its whole spirit and intention are opposed to it, as 
 were those of its most prominent framers, as we shall hereafter 
 show ; the Confederate Constitution proclaims that " the Con 
 federate States may acquire new territory. In all such territory 
 the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Con 
 federate States, shall be recognised and protected by Congress and 
 by the territorial governments, and the inhabitants of the several 
 Confederate States and territories shall have the right to take to 
 such territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States 
 or territories of the Confederate States " (Art. IV. Sect. 3). 2 
 
 If any additional evidence could be needed to establish the 
 
 1 Daily News, Jan. 9, 1863. 
 
 2 Bacon s "Guide to American Politics," pp. 61-81. A remarkable instance 
 of the pertinacity with which the most notorious untruths are promulgated 
 in England, concerning the parties to the War in America, was exhibited 
 
 D 
 
34 THE TRUE MOTIVE OF SECESSION. 
 
 true intent and purpose of Secession, we have it supplied to 
 our hand by the Confederate Congress which, before adjourning 
 in February, 1864, addressed to the Southern people a manifesto 
 intended to encourage and stimulate them to prolonged resist 
 ance. This paper declares, " Compelled by a long series of 
 oppressive and tyrannical acts " (which, we have proved, never 
 were committed against the South, and which the Southern 
 Vice-President himself utterly denied), "culminating at last in 
 the election of a President and Vice-President ty a party con 
 fessedly sectional, and hostile to the South and her institutions, 
 these States withdrew from the former Union, and formed a new 
 Confederate alliance, as an independent Government, based on 
 the proper relations of labour and capital" i.e. in which capital 
 owns labour. It avows also that they " had a right to expect 
 that they would be permitted, without molestation, to cultivate 
 the arts of peace, and vindicate in their chosen arena, and with the 
 selected type of social characteristics, their claims to civilization/ 
 And now let us inquire, What had the United States Govern 
 ment and the people of the North done, in the matter of slavery, 
 to justify the South in this flagrant act of rebellion ? Have they 
 attempted to legislate upon the question of slavery in any of 
 the Slave States? Never. The most violent haters of the 
 " institution " Garrison, the editor of the leading abolition 
 journal in Boston, the various Emancipation and Abolition 
 Societies at the North, the leaders of Anti-Slavery parties 
 have never dreamed of imposing upon the Slave States any 
 
 at a recent meeting of the Southern Independence Association, at Manchester. 
 A report of the proceedings was published in the Albion, and reprinted in 
 Galignani s Messenger, of Feb. 4, 1864. Mr. James Spence, the Financial 
 Agent of the Confederacy, is reported to have made the following statement 
 on that occasion, and we beg our readers to compare it with the above 
 quotation : The only bond which connects the States in the Southern Con 
 federation is the Constitution, which contains not a single principle in defence 
 of slavery." Mr. Spence, moreover, made his speech after the chairman had 
 commented on the comparative mendacity " of the people of the Northern and 
 Southern States and of England. He had appended the Confederate Constitution 
 to his book on " The American Union," so that he must have been aware of its 
 provisions. This is a fair sample of the undisguised partisan character of Mr. 
 Spence s book. Those who have read, or may read it, should, in justice to the 
 subject, consult some reliable commentary on the United States Constitution, 
 which will correct the mis-statements and inaccuracies, and supply the important 
 omissions, made by the Financial Agent. Those who have not access to the 
 classic works on the subject, will find a valuable epitome in Mr. Rawlins little 
 volume on "American Dis-Union," London, 1862 : Robert Hardwioke. 
 
THE PERPETUATION OP SLAVERY. 35 
 
 legislative enactments upon the subject. All parties at the 
 North were unanimous in the conviction that slavery was a 
 municipal " institution " of the several States in which it 
 existed ; that it was not one of those matters concerning which 
 the people had delegated to the General Government, under the 
 Constitution, the power to legislate; and that, consequently, 
 Congress should not even discuss the question of legislating 
 upon slavery in the States. The Northern people did, unques 
 tionably, desire and hope that the people of the Slave States 
 themselves would see the evil which they were cherishing, and 
 would themselves adopt some wise measures for removing it ; 
 their efforts were directed not to excite the slaves, but to 
 enlighten the masters. This was a fundamental principle even 
 of Mr. Garrison. 
 
 All that the Anti-Slavery men of the North asked or hoped 
 for from Congress was, that laws should be enacted to exclude 
 slavery from the public territories. Even this measure of justice, 
 scant on every ground of humanity and wise policy (as will 
 be made superabundantly evident, if it needed any proof), grew 
 very slowly into anything like a general demand at the North, 
 so unwilling were the people to give umbrage to their Southern 
 brethren. In 1840, the Presidential Candidate of the Anti- 
 Slavery Extension party received only 7,609 votes ; in 1844, 
 only 62,309 votes. In 1848, Mr. Van Buren, long the leader of 
 the Democratic party, and who had been elected by it Vice- 
 President, and subsequently President, of the United States, 
 received, as the Presidential Candidate of the Anti-Slavery- 
 Extensioii party, only 291,263 votes ; though nominated by the 
 delegates of all the Free States, as well as by those of Delaware, 
 Maryland, Virginia, and the district of Columbia, he did not 
 gain the electoral vote of a single State. Even in 1860, Mr. 
 Lincoln did not receive the undivided support of the Northern 
 people ; in fact, he obtained only 300,000 more votes than his 
 competitors combined. And what was the avowed determi 
 nation of Mr. Lincoln and the Republican party which elected 
 him ? Simply, in the words of the Vice-President 1 of the 
 Southern Confederacy, " to exclude slavery, by Acts of Congress, 
 from the public territories, and to oppose the extension of slavery 
 in every way." Now Mr. Lincoln was duly elected President, 
 according to the forms prescribed by the Constitution ; and 
 
 1 Bigelow, "Les Etats-Unis en 1863," p. 143. 
 D2 
 
36 THE TRUE MOTIVE OF SECESSION. 
 
 Congress, according to the same Constitution, has "power to 
 dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting 
 the territory or other property belonging to the United States " 
 (Art. IV. Sect. 3). 
 
 Thus the election of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency of the 
 Union inflicted no wrong upon the Slave States, and threatened 
 none of the rights to which the Constitution entitled them. So 
 far from it, they were solemnly assured by the man whom, a 
 few months afterwards, they elected to be Vice-President of their 
 own Confederacy, that, as they always had controlled the general 
 Government, so they could continue to control it, if they chose 
 to remain in the Union. 1 
 
 From all the preceding considerations, we think that the 
 following propositions are abundantly established : 1st. That 
 the States possess no " Eight of Secession " from the Union, 
 other than the right of revolution; 2nd. That the Southern 
 people had never either suffered, or been threatened with, any 
 grievance from the United States Government, or from the people 
 of the Free States, to justify their resort to this extremity ; 3rd. 
 That the rebellion was undertaken because the Southern leaders, 
 finding that the extension of slavery was no longer possible in 
 the Union, desired to found a new republic, based upon slavery, 
 as " its corner-stone," and having the permanence and extension 
 of slavery as its fundamental policy. 
 
 In the further consideration of our subject, therefore, we need 
 only examine into the nature of this novel foundation for poli 
 tical institutions. We shall exhibit the real sentiments of the 
 Southern people concerning their "peculiar institution/ and 
 their plans for its extension. We shall also endeavour to show 
 some of the bad effects which slavery has already produced upon 
 the South, by contrasting the moral and material condition of 
 its population with that of the inhabitants of the Free States. 
 Thus we shall be enabled to form some idea of the future career 
 of the South as an independent " Slave Kepublic," and to deter 
 mine whether or not the attempt to establish such a power 
 should receive sanction or encouragement from humane Christian 
 men, or civilized nations. 
 
 1 Ante, p. 5. 
 
FORMER SENTIMENTS AT THE SOUTH. 37 
 
 I. 
 
 OPINIONS FORMERLY ENTERTAINED CONCERNING 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 AT the period of the War of Independence, slavery existed in 
 all the English colonies which afterwards constituted the United 
 States. But in those situated north of Virginia, the soil and 
 climate, the distribution of land, and the agricultural products 
 best adapted thereto, as well as the public sentiment, were all 
 less favourable to slavery, as a system of labour, than in the 
 Southern colonies. Consequently, it never had become so firmly 
 rooted in the former as in the latter ; and, during the twenty 
 years which followed the war, slavery was more or less com 
 pletely abolished in all the Northern States. 
 
 Southern writers, and amongst them the President of the 
 Southern Confederacy, have endeavoured to prove that the 
 Northern proprietors of slaves rid themselves of slavery by 
 selling their slaves, or a great portion of them, to Southern 
 planters. But there is no evidence whatever to show that this 
 was the case, saving, perhaps, in a few exceptional instances. 1 
 
 It was at the South, however, at that time, that the most 
 earnest desires were expressed in favour of the abolition of the 
 system of negro servitude, because it was there that the evils 
 attending it were most felt. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, 
 Henry, Randolph, Pinckney, Mason, Marshall, and others of the 
 foremost men of the South, denounced the institution as severely 
 as the most earnest Abolitionists of the present day can do. 2 
 They pointed out the danger to the community arising from the 
 existence of so large a population, possessing no ties of interest 
 
 1 Livermore, "Historical Research," Boston, 1863. 
 
 3 Helper s " Impending Crisis at the South, and How to Meet it," chap. iii. 
 
38 SLAVERY. 
 
 or of patriotism in common with the whites. Those men, too, 
 who had been amongst the most prominent supporters of the 
 Declaration of Independence, felt that it was a monstrous 
 contradiction to profess "that all men are created equal; that 
 they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, 
 among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," 
 while they denied those inalienable rights to hundreds of thou 
 sands of their fellow-creatures. The various social evils incident 
 to the system were forcibly exhibited, in 1788, by Colonel 
 Mason, 1 an ancestor of the late Confederate Commissioner to 
 England: "Slavery discourages arts and manufactures. The 
 poor despise labour when performed by slaves. These prevent 
 the immigration of whites, who really enrich and strengthen a 
 country. They produce the most pernicious effect on manners. 
 They bring the judgment of Heaven upon a country. As nations 
 cannot be rewarded or punished in the next world, they must be 
 in this. By an inevitable chain of causes and effects, Providence 
 punishes national sins by national calamities." 
 
 At that early day, there was little or none of that antipathy 
 to the negro, on account of his colour, which has so much pre 
 vailed since. Even in South Carolina, the Legislative Assembly, 2 
 in 1774, resolved, "That His Majesty s subjects in North America 
 (without respect of colour or other accidents), are entitled to all 
 the inherent rights and liberties of his natural-born subjects 
 within the kingdom of Great Britain ; that it is their funda 
 mental right that no man should suffer in his person or property 
 without a fair trial, and judgment given by his peers, or by the 
 law of the land." By the original Articles of Confederation, it 
 was declared that " the free inhabitants of each of these States 
 (paupers, vagabonds, fugitives from justice, excepted) shall be 
 entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the 
 several States" (Art. IV). Thus free negroes were placed on the 
 footing of citizenship with the whites. The delegates from South 
 Carolina, indeed, demanded that citizenship should be restricted 
 to the whites ; but the demand was supported by the delegates 
 from only two States, and it was rejected. 3 The Constitution, 
 likewise, in the clause relating to taxation and representation 
 
 1 Ibid. p. 165. 
 3 Ibid. p. 186. 
 3 Livermore, op. cit. pp. 25, 26. 
 
FORMER SENTIMENTS AT THE SOUTH. 39 
 
 (Art. I. Sect. 2), classes free negroes with whites ; and another 
 clause, as we have already pointed out, secures to all " the citi 
 zens of each State all the privileges and immunities of citizens 
 in the several States," including free negroes. 1 
 
 We have already said that the most prominent men in the 
 Southern Colonies were desirous for the enfranchisement of 
 the slaves. In the first Continental Congress, held in 1774, 
 Mr. Jefferson, 2 as the organ of the delegates from Virginia, 
 declared, " The abolition of domestic slavery is the great object 
 of desire in these colonies." And as an essential initiatory step 
 to this end an effort was made to stop the slave-trade. All 
 the members of that Congress adopted and signed a series of 
 articles to aid in the accomplishment of that purpose ; and these 
 articles were subsequently ratified by the Conventions of the 
 different Southern States. 8 Those State Conventions were sup 
 ported by unofficial popular meetings. 4 
 
 Southerners of the olden time did not, as do their descendants 
 of the present day, boldly affirm the right of property in man. 
 In the Maryland Convention, in 1787-8, Mr. Pinckney 5 declared 
 that " according to the natural and eternal principles of justice, 
 no man has a right to hold a slave in bondage a single hour." 
 Mr. Madison has recorded the fact that, "the idea that there 
 could be a right of property in man was generally considered as 
 monstrous, and that it should not be admitted into the Constitu 
 tion." Hence the words slave and slavery were carefully excluded 
 therefrom. Even that clause of the Constitution which relates 
 to the restoration of fugitives " from service or labour," was sedu 
 lously weeded of the expression servitude, which was originally 
 employed, and the word service 6 was, " on motion of Mr. Ran 
 dolph, of Virginia, unanimously substituted ; the former being 
 thought to express the condition of slaves, the latter the obliga 
 tion of free persons." Thus there is no clause in the Constitution 
 of the United States which recognises slavery. It is the crowning 
 distinction of the Southern Confederacy 7 that, in the nineteenth 
 
 See Note ante, p. 25. 
 Helper, op. tit. p. 154. 
 Livermore, op. tit. pp. 19, 20. 
 Helper, op. tit. p. 190. 5 Ibid. p. 172. 
 
 See "The Madison Papers," vol. iii. p. 1569. 
 
 See the extract from the Speech of Vice-President Stephens, and also the 
 clauses quoted from the Confederate Constitution, on p. 33. 
 
40 SLAVERY. 
 
 century, it should be " the first in the history of the world," not 
 only to recognise and establish it, but to be avowedly and 
 designedly founded upon it. 
 
 There is no way by which we can more surely prove the real 
 meaning and intention of the Constitution, than by comparing its 
 text with the sentiments, often and solemnly expressed, of its 
 founders, or a majority of them. Judged in this manner, there 
 is no doubt whatever that the Constitution did desire and intend 
 that slavery should be gradually abolished, 1 and for this purpose 
 two effectual measures, as it was thought at the time, were taken 
 to prevent the increase and extension of the institution. These 
 were, the exclusion of slavery from the larger portion of the 
 public territories, and the limitation of the slave-trade to twenty 
 years from the ratification of the Constitution. This is important 
 to be kept in mind. 
 
 When the colonies declared their independence of Great 
 Britain, most of them claimed extensive tracts of land to the 
 west and north of the settlements, under their original charters. 
 Dissensions and jealousies arose concerning them. But at the 
 close of the war of Independence, certain of the States ceded to 
 the general Government most of the unoccupied and partially- 
 explored land which they severally owned, and it was hoped 
 that all the States would do so. Foremost among the donors 
 was Virginia. The public domain thus acquired was intended 
 to constitute a common guarantee for the payment of the public 
 debt contracted during the war. In 1784, under the old Articles 
 of Confederation, a Committee of Congress, composed of three 
 members, two of whom, including Mr. Jefferson, were from the 
 South, proposed that from the whole of the actual and future 
 public territory slavery should be for ever excluded after the 
 year 1800. The delegates from the Carolinas and Georgia, 
 
 1 The Vice-President of the Southern Confederacy has given his most valuable 
 testimony to this fact. In his speech at Savannah, after the Secession, Mr. 
 Stephens said : "The prevailing ideas entertained by Jefferson and most of the 
 leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution were, that 
 the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature that it 
 was wrong in principle socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they 
 knew not how to deal with ; but the general opinion of the men of that day was 
 that, somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the institution would be 
 evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the Constitution, 
 was the prevailing idea at the time." London Daifj/ News, Jan. 9, 1863. 
 
FORMER SENTIMENTS AT THE SOUTH. 41 
 
 together with one delegate from one other State, seven delegates 
 in all, voted against this proposition. It was supported by all 
 the delegates from six States, together with four others, in all 
 sixteen votes. Nevertheless, this measure was lost, in conse 
 quence of the absence, on account of illness, of one of the dele 
 gates from New Jersey, who, however, was in favour of it ; his 
 colleague voted for it. The ballotting was by States, and not by 
 delegates. 
 
 In 1787, a similar measure was passed, applicable only to that 
 portion of the public territory lying north and west of the Ohio. 
 The delegates from the Carolinas and Georgia voted in favour of 
 this proposition. But they refused to consent that the territories 
 which had belonged to them, and which were south of the Ohio, 
 should be included in this law. Four Slave States have since 
 been created out of this reserved territory, embracing 181,158 
 square miles. 
 
 It is important to bear in mind the intention of these two 
 Bills, as they not only established a precedent for the disposition 
 of the public lands, and showed that, in the estimation of the 
 legislators of the day, Congress had a perfect right so to dispose 
 of the public territory, but as they exhibit unmistakably the 
 sentiments of the public men concerning the extension of slavery 
 into the public territories. 1 
 
 The history of the abolition of the slave-trade is as follows. 
 In accordance with the opinions of the delegates to the Conti 
 nental Congress of 1774, the African slave-trade had been par 
 tially prohibited by laws passed by the several State Assemblies, 
 as we have already pointed out. In 1788, it was proposed, by 
 an Article of the new Constitution, at once and for ever to 
 abolish the trade. The delegates from all the Northern States, 
 as well as those from Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware, were 
 desirous that such an Article should be incorporated with the 
 Constitution. But the delegates from the Carolinas and Georgia 
 peremptorily declared that, if such a clause were introduced, those 
 States would not enter into the proposed Union. 2 Accordingly, 
 
 1 Ludlow s "History of the United States," pp. 46-48 ; Bigelow, " Les Etats- 
 Unis en 1863," pp. 88-91. 
 
 2 Livermore, op. cit. pp. 19, 20 ; also Mr. Simmer s "Speech on the Repeal of 
 the Fugitive-Slave Law," p. 15. Mr. Stephens has also admitted the fact in his 
 speech quoted on p. 4. 
 
42 SLAVERY. 
 
 under this pressure, the Constitution was made to allow the 
 slave-trade until 1808, the union of all the States being con 
 sidered a matter of most vital and immediate necessity. 
 
 To-day, the advocates and apologists for slavery pretend that 
 the relationship between masters and slaves is more or less 
 similar to that between parents, or guardians, and minors ; be 
 tween tutors and pupils, between masters and apprentices. 
 Judge Rufnn, of South Carolina, 1 thirty years ago, pronounced 
 a very different opinion. He said, " 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 or guide 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 other 
 means effectual. With slavery it is far otherwise. The end is 
 the profit of the master, his security, and the public safety ; the 
 subject is 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. . . 
 The power of the master must be absolute, to render the sub 
 mission of the slave perfect." 
 
 JSTow we are told 2 that " slavery elevates the tone of the 
 superior class, adds to its refinements, exalts the standard in 
 morals, manners, and intellectual endowments," &c. &c. The 
 Presbyterian Synod of South Carolina, thirty years ago, passed 
 a different sentence upon the influence exerted by slavery upon 
 the white population : " We have a mill-stone bound to our 
 necks, which plunges us into an ocean of vice. Our children, 
 from their earliest infancy, are corrupted by their contact with 
 the slaves ; and all our relations with them induce in ourselves 
 an intellectual and moral deterioration." 3 
 
 All over the Slave States the conviction was general, thirty 
 
 1 Helper, op. cit. p. 179. 
 
 3 Address on Climatology, before the New Orleans Academy of Science, by 
 Dr. Barton, quoted by Mr. Olmsted, "Journeys and Explorations in the Cotton 
 Kingdom," vol. ii. p. 277. 
 
 3 "Les Etats-Unis en 1861," par M. le Pasteur Fiseh, Paris, 1862 ; p. 199. 
 
FORMER SENTIMENTS AT THE SOUTH. 43 
 
 years ago, that they were retrograding as compared with the 
 Free States ; and a wave of public sentiment swelled high in 
 Virginia, but died away as it reached South Carolina, to sweep 
 away the curse from the land. Judge Gaston, 1 one of the most 
 enlightened men of North Carolina, said, "Disguise it as we 
 may, and throw the blame where we may, it is slavery which, 
 more than any other cause, keeps us back in the career of im 
 provement. It stifles industry and represses enterprise ; it is 
 fatal to economy and prudence ; it discourages skill, impairs our 
 strength as a community, and poisons morals at the fountain- 
 head." During the discussions in the Virginia Legislature, in 
 1832, the last time that a vigorous effort was made to abolish 
 slavery in that State, when the enormities and evils of the system 
 were thoroughly exposed by many able men, Mr. Faulkner, late 
 United States minister to France, summed up his bill of indict 
 ment against it as follows : 
 
 " If there be one who believes in the harmless character of this insti 
 tution, let me request him to compare the condition of the slave-holding 
 portion of this commonwealth barren, desolate, and scarred, as it were, 
 by the avenging hand of Heaven with the descriptions we have of this 
 country from those who first broke its soil. To what is this change 
 ascribable ? Alone to the withering and blasting effects of slavery. If this 
 does not satisfy him, let me request him to extend his travels to the 
 Northern States of this Union, and contrast the happiness and content 
 ment which prevail throughout that country the busy and cheerful 
 sounds of industry, the rapid growth of their population, their means and 
 institutions of education, their skill and proficiency in the useful arts, 
 their enterprise and public spirit, the monuments of their commercial and 
 manufacturing industry, and, above all, their devoted attachment to the 
 Government from which they derive their protection with the division, 
 discontent, indolence, and poverty of the Southern country. To what, sir, is all 
 this ascribable ? To that vice in the organization of society by which 
 one-half of the inhabitants are arrayed in feeling and interest against the 
 other half ; to that unfortunate state of society in which free men regard 
 labour as disgraceful, and slaves shrink from it as a burden tyrannically 
 imposed upon them ; to that condition of things in which half a million 
 of your population can feel no sympathy with the society in the prosperity 
 of which they are forbidden to participate, and no attachment to a Govern 
 ment at whose hands they receive nothing but injustice. . . . Does the 
 slaveholder, while he is enjoying his slaves, reflect upon the deep injury 
 and incalculable loss the possession of that property inflicts upon the 
 
 1 Address before the Literary Societies of the University of North Carolina. 
 Helper, op. cit. p. 181. 
 
44 SLAVERY. 
 
 country ? Slavery, it is admitted, is an evil ; it is an institution which 
 presses heavily upon the best interests of the State. It banishes free 
 white labour ; it exterminates the mechanic, the artisan, the manufacturer. 
 Tt deprives them of occupation. It deprives them of bread. It converts 
 the energy of a community into indolence, its power into imbecility, its 
 efficiency into weakness. Sir, as it is thus injurious, have we not a right 
 to demand its extermination ? Shall society suffer, that the slave-holder 
 may continue to gather his crop of human flesh ? What is his mere 
 pecuniary claim compared with the great interests of the common weal ? 
 Must the country languish, droop, die, that the slave-holder may nourish ? 
 Shall all interests be subservient to one all rights subordinate to those 
 of the slave-holder ? Have not the middle classes their rights rights 
 incompatible with the existence of slavery ? " * 
 
 An effort was made in Kentucky, even so late as 1848, by 
 Mr. Clay, to provide for the abolition of slavery by introducing 
 into the amended Constitution of that State the requisite 
 powers ; but the effort failed there, as elsewhere, and from 
 causes which we shall presently explain. 
 
 1 Helper, op. cit. p. 86 and p. 140. 
 
CHANGE OF SENTIMENT. 45 
 
 II. 
 
 CHANGE OF SENTIMENT AT THE SOUTH. 
 
 GRADUALLY, during the last thirty years or more, a complete 
 revolution has taken place in Southern sentiment, under the 
 guidance especially of Mr. Calhoun and his fellow-citizens of 
 South Carolina. 
 
 About thirty years ago, Mr. Calhoun made the discovery that 
 " Slavery is the surest and most solid foundation in the world 
 for free institutions." Governor M Duffie, of the same State, 
 varied the peal a little, by announcing that " Slavery is the very 
 corner-stone of our Eepublican edifice." Governor Hammond, 
 of the same State, completed the chime, and rang out, " Slavery 
 is not only a necessary and inexorable fact, but it is a moral and 
 humane institution, productive of the greatest political and social 
 advantages." 
 
 It was natural that so all-engrossing a question should have 
 extended into religious bodies. One after another, most of the 
 various religious sects in the United States became divided 
 thereby, those of the South separating from their Northern 
 brethren. And it is important to note that, in the different 
 manifestoes issued from time to time by the former, to explain 
 their schismatic proceedings, they have uniformly lorne ivitness to 
 the opposition which slavery has met with at the North. This is a 
 precious admission, inasmuch as now it is pretended, by South 
 erners and by their English friends, that the North is not opposed 
 to slavery, and that this institution is more likely to cease under 
 Southern independence, by voluntary abolition, than it will 
 under Northern supremacy, that is, under a renewed Union. 
 
 In the Letter 1 addressed by the Presbyterian Synods of the 
 
 1 " L Araerique devant 1 Europe," par M. de Gasparin. We have already 
 quoted another sentence from this Letter, p. 32. 
 
46 SLAVERY. 
 
 South " to all the Churches on Earth," it is stated to be " certain 
 that the North cherishes a profound antipathy against slavery, 
 whilst the South is animated with a zeal equally strong in favour 
 of that institution." 
 
 The Eev. Dr. Palmer, 1 of New Orleans, said, in the sermon 
 from which we have already quoted, " It cannot be denied that 
 the population of the North is almost without exception opposed 
 to slavery, if it be not actually Abolitionist. The whole of the 
 present generation there has been brought up to hate it as a 
 national sin. There they hope and expect and pray that it may 
 be abolished within a reasonable time ; and they cannot be satis 
 fied unless they see that some progress is being made towards this 
 end. We, on the other hand, chosen guardians of slavery, we 
 cannot be satisfied with anything less than its extension," &c. 
 
 On the 22nd November, 1862, the Bishops of the Protestant 
 Episcopal Church of the Southern States addressed a Pastoral 
 Letter to their flocks. In this letter a commendable desire is 
 manifested to aid in reforming the abuses which the Bishops 
 deplore as being rife at the South on the subject of slavery 
 abuses which the Bishops charge in great part upon the clergy. 
 They declare that tJie Church at the South is unanimous in the 
 support of slavery. They admit the gross ignorance which prevails, 
 and exhort the clergy to " strip themselves of their pride and fasti 
 diousness and indolence," and devote themselves zealously to give 
 to the slaves " that religious and moral instruction which is to 
 elevate them in the scale of being." (p. 11.) They then speak of 
 " the duty of the Church to press upon the masters of the country 
 their obligations as Christians so to arrange this institution as 
 not to necessitate the violation of those sacred relations which God 
 has created, and which man cannot, consistently with Christian 
 duty, annul. The systems of labour which prevail in Europe," they 
 continue, "and which are in many respects more severe than 
 ours, are so arranged as to prevent all necessity for the separa 
 tion of parents and children, and of husbands and wives ; and a 
 very little care on our part would rid the system upon which we 
 are about to plant our national life of those unchristian features. 
 . . . Hitherto we have been hindered by the pressure of 
 Abolitionism ; now that we have thrown off from us that hateful 
 and infidel pestilence we should prove to the world that we are 
 
 1 London Daily Ncwa, Aug. 8, 1863 ; also ante, p. 32. 
 
CHANGE OF SENTIMENT. 47 
 
 faithful to our trust/ &c. &c. (p. 12.) What more complete 
 acknowledgment of the existence of two of the greatest evils 
 attendant upon slavery, the utter disregard of the social ties and 
 relations of the slaves, and the absence of any systematic moral 
 and religious and intellectual training, could be given? And 
 what more complete evidence of the determination of the re 
 ligious leaders of the people to have nothing to do with abolition 
 could the Southern Independence Association in England desire ? * 
 
 More recently still a manifesto, signed by a hundred clergy 
 men, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Baptists, Methodists, &c., has 
 been addressed " to Christians throughout the World ;" extraordi 
 nary efforts were made to circulate it widely throughout Great 
 Britain. 2 This paper declares that " surrounded as we are with 
 all the facts bearing upon slavery, and knowing well its practical 
 operation, we solemnly testify before God that the relationship 
 between the master and the slave, as it exists here, is not incom 
 patible with our holy Christianity, notwithstanding the many 
 abuses which we deplore, and which exist also in other human 
 relations. The existence of Africans in our country gives us 
 reason to bless God on their account. The condition of the 
 slaves is not wretched, as Northern writers of fiction would have 
 us believe, but it is prosperous and happy ; and it would have 
 been much more so if the false zeal of the Abolitionists had not 
 prevented us. ... We consider Abolitionism is an obstacle 
 to the plans of God. It does not bear the mark of the Lord s 
 blessing. It is a fanaticism which produces no good fruit." 
 
 It is strange that Christians, seeing how utterly neglected the 
 religious instruction of the slaves has always been, should pre 
 tend that one of the advantages of slavery is that it christianizes 
 the African. Yet this is one of the arguments urged not only in 
 favour of slavery, but also of re-opening the African slave- 
 trade. The Eev. Dr. Thornwall, 3 said to be one of the most 
 distinguished theologians of South Carolina, has expressed his 
 conviction that " The slave-trade is the most worthy of all the 
 Missionary Societies" 
 
 1 Pastoral Letter from the Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church to 
 the Clergy and Laity of the Church in the Confederate States of America. 
 Delivered before the General Council, in St. Paul s Church, Augusta, Saturday, 
 Nov. 22, 1862. . 
 
 2 London Daily News, Aug. , 1863. 
 
 3 " Les Etats-Unis en 1863," par M. le Pasteur Fiscli, p. 189. 
 
48 SLAVERY. 
 
 Iii fact, the opinions which have been everywhere avowed, 
 during the last few years, by the most intelligent people of the 
 South, as to the excellence of the " institution," are more like the 
 ravings of delirium than the sober expressions of sensible men. 
 Thus The Southern Literary Messenger, of Charleston, the oldest 
 and the most widely read of all the Southern periodicals, 1 re 
 cently favoured the world with the following definition : " An 
 A bolitionist is a man who does not love slavery for its own sake, 
 as a divine institution ; who does not worship it as a corner-stone 
 of civil liberty ; who does not adore it as the only possible social 
 condition, on which a permanent Republican Government can be 
 erected ; and who does not, in his inmost soul, desire to see it 
 extended and perpetuated over the whole earth, as a means of 
 human reformation, second only in dignity, importance and sacred- 
 ness to the Christian religion itself." 
 
 Mr. Fitzhugh, of Virginia, 2 in a book on the " Sociology of the 
 South," says : "The Jewish slaves were not negroes, and to conline 
 the justification of slavery to the negro race would be to weaken 
 the scriptural authority and to lose the weight of profane au 
 thority ; for we read of no negro slavery in ancient times. 
 Slavery, black or white, is right and necessary." 
 
 The Richmond Enquirer? the most authoritative, perhaps, of 
 the Southern journals, declares " Eepeatedly have we asked the 
 North Has not the experiment of universal liberty failed ? 
 Are not the evils of free society insufferable ( Still no answer. 
 Their silence is a conclusive proofj added to many others we 
 have furnished, that free society, in the long run, is an im 
 practicable form of society : it is everywhere starving, demo 
 ralized, and insurrectionary. Policy and humanity alike forbid 
 the extension of the evils of free society to new people and 
 coming generations. Until recently the apologists of slavery 
 took half-way grounds. They confined the defence of slavery to 
 negro slavery, thereby giving up the principle of slavery, ad 
 mitting other forms of servitude to be wrong. The South now 
 maintains that slavery of itself is right, natural, and necessary. 
 While it is far more obvious that negroes should be slaves rather 
 than whites for they are only fit to labour, not to direct yet 
 
 1 Quoted by Professor Cairnes, " The Slave Power," p. 177. 
 a London Daily News, March 19, 1863. 
 3 Ibid. 
 
CHANGE OF SENTIMENT. 49 
 
 the principle of slavery is itself right, and does not depend 
 upon complexion." 
 
 Another Virginian journal, 1 The Southside Democrat, admits, 
 " We have got to hating everything with the prefix free, from 
 free negroes up and down the whole catalogue free farms, free 
 labour, free society, free will, free thought, and free schools. But 
 the worst of all these abominations is free schools." The article 
 then discusses the best way of disposing of those poor people 
 who are not able to educate their children ; and concludes, " Let 
 our Legislature pass a law, that whoever will take these parents, 
 and take care of them and their offspring in health and sickness, 
 clothe them, feed them, and house them, shall be legally entitled 
 to their services." 
 
 These sentiments are not intended to be idle talk. We shall 
 see, from the career and condition of the Slave States, that they 
 have been, and are meant still to be, the controlling policy of 
 that section, so long as they can be carried out. 
 
 And now, how is this great change which has come over 
 the Southern mind, since the era of Washington and his con 
 temporaries, to be accounted for ? 
 
 The clergy of the South, as we have seen, ascribe it to 
 Northern Abolitionism. And this explanation generally passes 
 current at the South, and is re-echoed by the friends of slavery 
 everywhere. But nothing can be more untrue. 
 
 We have seen that, so long ago as the Declaration of In 
 dependence, the prominent statesmen of the South saw and 
 deplored the same evils which the Southern Bishops now ac 
 knowledge to be chargeable to Slavery. Then the ignorance, 
 the gross immorality, the idleness, the general impoverishment 
 of the whites at the South, were charged upon slavery by slave 
 holders, and were urged, not only upon State Legislatures, but 
 upon the General Government, as convincing arguments for the 
 necessity of abolition. The great men of the South were then 
 Abolitionists in the best sense of the term ; and there was not a 
 man or a woman at the South, possessed of brains or heart, who 
 would not have despised or pitied the author of the definition of 
 an Abolitionist, which we have quoted from the pink of Southern 
 reviews. So lately as 1832, nowhere at the North could 
 
 1 London Daily News, March 19, 1863. 
 I E 
 
50 SLAVERY. 
 
 slavery have been more bitterly and more truly denounced than 
 it was in Southern legislative halls. 1 In 1830, of the thirty-six 
 Abolition Societies which existed in the United States, twenty- 
 eight were established in the Slave States. One of these, " The 
 Virginia Society for the Abolition of Slavery," established in 
 1791, addressed a memorial to Congress, 2 in which it testified 
 "that slavery is not only an odious degradation, but an out 
 rageous violation of one of the most essential rights of human 
 nature, and utterly repugnant to the precepts of the Gospel," &c. 
 A pamphlet published 3 under the auspices of the " Manumission 
 Society of North Carolina," in 1830, calls upon "the friends of 
 virtue, humanity, patriotism, and, above all, religion, to awaken 
 to a sense of the many principles of injustice, inhumanity, and 
 irreligion which attend our system of African slavery. . . . We 
 have impartially examined the evil in its origin, its progress, and 
 its present state, as well as its future consequences ; and, even in 
 its mildest form, it shrinks from rational inspection a monster 
 of hideous deformity in its lest feature" At that time, the only 
 special Abolition journal in the United States was published in 
 the slave-holding city of Baltimore. 4 It was not until after this 
 period, and then only in consequence of the constant and un 
 scrupulous aggressions of the South upon the intent and letter 
 of the Constitution, that the spirit, not of Abolitionism, but of 
 opposition to the extension of slavery, began to show itself at 
 the North. We have already indicated how gradually and how 
 unaggremvely that spirit manifested itself. 5 In fact, during the 
 first years of his career as editor and publisher of The Liberator, 
 in Boston, Mr. Garrison was scarcely tolerated ; his establish 
 ment was destroyed, and he himself was imprisoned ; and the 
 term Abolitionist was one of reproach. It is only within three 
 years that Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Sumner, and other avowed 
 Abolitionists have been able to speak to public audiences, uni 
 versally, in the Northern cities. At Washington, the South was 
 all-powerful, so as to prevent the reception, by the House of 
 Eepresentatives, of the most respectful Petitions in favour of 
 
 1 See ante, p. 43. 
 
 2 Helper, op. cit. p. 173. 
 s Ibid. p. 183. 
 
 4 Ludlow s " History of the United States," p. IOC ; " Los Etats-Unis en 1863." 
 J Ante, pp. 34-36. 
 
CHANGE OP SENTIMENT. 51 
 
 abolishing slavery in the district of Columbia, and even "all 
 memorials, petitions, resolutions, or propositions having any refer 
 ence to slavery." This rule was not abrogated until 1845, during 
 ten years. 1 
 
 No ! The charge of Abolitionism made against the North 
 never had any foundation. The North was too unwilling to 
 occasion sectional animosity, too unwilling to give the South 
 any " occasion of offence/ even, at the expense of justice and 
 humanity. The charge was made by the slaveholders, aware of 
 its untruth, in order to unite the Southern people against the 
 North, that by intimidation the latter should be forced to concede 
 everything to ensure the extension of slavery. 
 
 Mr. Calhoun, having failed to unite the South on the Tariff 
 question, raised the cry of Abolitionism. He established a 
 journal at Washington, The United- States Telegraph, in order to 
 advocate the special policy of the South. Mr. Hill, Senator 
 from New Hampshire, a Democrat and an ally of the South, 
 protested, in the Senate, that he " abhorred the Abolitionists," 
 but that not all their publications and other efforts combined 
 could do one-half the mischief which was being accomplished 
 by this single journal of Mr. Calhoun. 2 Ex-President Madison, 
 a slaveholder, writing to Mr. Clay, also a slaveholder, said, 
 " It is painful to see the unceasing efforts made to alarm the 
 South, by imputations against the North of unconstitutional 
 designs on the subject of slavery." To another, he wrote, " The 
 inculcated impression of a permanent incompatability of interests 
 between the North and the South may put it in the power of 
 popular leaders, aspiring to the highest stations, to unite the South 
 on some critical occasion. In pursuing this course, the first and 
 most obvious step is nullification, the next secession, and the 
 last a final separation." 3 
 
 1 "Les Etats-TJnis en 1863," p. 143. 
 
 8 Ludlow, op. cit. pp. 164, 165. 
 
 3 Ibid. The slaves have, undoubtedly, been indebted to their masters for the 
 knowledge that they must look to the North for friends and freedom. No 
 restraint whatever seems to have been placed upon the whites in exaggerating 
 the efforts made by Northern Abolitionists in behalf of the negroes. At public 
 meetings, at elections, at social entertainments, in ordinary fire-side converse, 
 slaves being present, and hearing all, or enough, the opposition of the North to 
 slavery has been the great topic of speech-making and of talk. This has been" 
 particularly the case at the epochs of Presidential elections. Thus the slaves 
 
 E 2 
 
52 SLAVERY. 
 
 But what had the Southerners to fear from Northern Abo 
 litionists ? Not, surely, that the latter would go to the planta 
 tions, and preach insurrection to the slaves. If any man, fool 
 enough to undertake such an errand, had been found in any 
 Slave State, he would have been hung on the nearest tree. Not 
 that any abolition publication would have been circulated 
 amongst the slaves. In the first place, Northern Abolitionists 
 did not address themselves to the slaves, but to the masters, in 
 their publications ; and secondly, not one slave in a hundred 
 thousand could have read them, no matter how incendiary they 
 might have been. Mr. Calhoun s journal made known the 
 danger which the slave-owners foresaw : " The real danger of a 
 slave-insurrection is remote. We have most to fear from the 
 organized action upon the consciences and fears of slaveholders 
 themselves from the insinuation of their dangerous heresies 
 into our schools, our pulpits, and our domestic circles. It is 
 only by alarming the consciences of the weak, and by diffusing 
 amongst our people a morbid sensibility on the question of 
 slavery, that the Abolitionists can accomplish anything." l " Con 
 science makes cowards of us all." It was the enlightenment 
 of their own consciences by the truth which the slave-owners 
 were most anxious to avoid. 
 
 The true explanation of the change of sentiment is not to be 
 
 have been made aware, not by Abolitionists, but by Southerners themselves, that 
 a political ferment was going on, in which they were the persons most interested. 
 The candidateship of Fremont, and the apprehensions entertained at the South 
 of his success, must have been in this way quite well known amongst the slaves, 
 especially amongst the house-servants, from whom the facts, exaggerated and 
 diversely interpreted, would spread to the field-hands. But the extraordinary 
 importance of the last Presidential election, upon the result of which so much 
 was known to depend, must have been the subject of constant thought and 
 conversation amongst the negroes ; and they must have looked forward to its 
 decision as to the cardinal point of their fate. Knowing, too, that a great 
 political party was formed for the especial object of limiting slavery, and gradually 
 bringing it to an end, they could well bide their time. Probably this reflection 
 has contributed very much to the non-occurence of insurrections amongst them, 
 which everyone looked upon as one of the certainties of the war. It is curious 
 to note the idea which the slaves have of Mr. Lincoln. In the " Eeport of the 
 Commission on the Condition of the Freedmen," a conversation amongst some 
 freed slaves at Hilton Head is alluded to, which a grey-headed sachem of the party 
 interruped as follows : "Massa Link um ! what you know bout Massa Link um 
 Massa Linkum eb ry whar ; he walk de erf like do Lord ! " 
 ] Olmsted s "Journeys and Explorations," vol. ii. p. 357. 
 
CHANGE OF SENTIMENT. 53 
 
 found, then, in any fancied danger of slave-insurrection, excited 
 by Northern Abolitionists. It exists in that baser motive which 
 underlies the whole system of slavery " the ignoble love of 
 gold." Nowhere, perhaps, more strongly than in the origin and 
 extension of slavery, is it apparent that " the love of money is 
 the root of all evil." The enormous expansion of the cotton- 
 crop of the South, and, to a less degree, that of rice, tobacco, and 
 sugar, explains the whole mystery. 
 
 The agricultural history of the Slave States proves that, 
 under the system of slave labour, they have been undergoing 
 a constant and progressive deterioration in comparative pro 
 ductiveness, and in the value of land. Slave labour necessitates 
 simplicity of agricultural operations, on account of the ignorance 
 of the labourers and their want of interest in the result of their 
 toil. In the Northern range of Slave States, tobacco has always 
 been almost the only product cultivated for sale ; in the Southern 
 States, cotton. 
 
 From of old, Virginia had the monopoly of tobacco. It was 
 the great standard of value for every thing. A clergyman s 
 salary was fixed by law at 16,000 pounds of tobacco, with per 
 quisites, as 200 pounds of tobacco for a marriage service, and 
 400 pounds of the same weed for a funeral sermon. It was 
 the only article which could be sold, and therefore every one 
 cultivated it. Even so late as the time of the Eevolutionary 
 war, the tobacco-crop of Virginia was worth twice as much as 
 all the other agricultural products of the colony, and ten times 
 as much as all the shipping, timber, naval-stores, peltry, and 
 other productions of the forest, fisheries, mines, and manu 
 factures. 1 So long as the foreign slave-trade existed, under the 
 auspices of the mother-country, the annual increase of labourers, 
 amounting to about 1,000 2 in 1724, permitted of an aggregate 
 augmentation of the crop, in spite of the diminishing fertility of 
 
 1 Olmsted s "Seaboard Slave States," pp. 242, 271. Beverley, in the early 
 part of the last century, chronicled the fact that the colonists of Virginia were 
 repeatedly menaced with famine from their neglecting to plant corn enough for 
 themselves, that they might sow more tobacco. And, until a comparatively late 
 period, the colonists were frequently stimulated by laws to plant more corn and 
 less tobacco, just as the people of the Southern States, during the last three 
 years, have been often reminded by their legislators to neglect cotton-planting in 
 favour of cereals. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 238. 
 
54 SLAVERY. 
 
 the soil. But the demand did not increase in proportion to the 
 supply; prices fell, and the planters were steadily becoming 
 impoverished, notwithstanding repeated attempts, by legislative 
 enactments, to limit production and force prices. Property 
 was, before the Eevolution, much more unequally divided than 
 it has been since the laws of primogeniture and descent in tail 
 were repealed. So early as 1677, the English proprietaries of 
 the colony l upbraided the colonists for " the lazy rapacity with 
 which each desired to surround himself with a large expanse of 
 property, over which he could exert no other act of ownership 
 than that of excluding the occupants by whom it might be 
 advantageously cultivated." The same disposition continued, 
 under the combined influence of impoverishment of soil, low 
 prices of products, and fresh importations of slaves. But at 
 the time of the Revolution, " the average property of a majority 
 of the able-bodied, tax-paying men in Virginia was less than 
 one hundred dollars." 2 The condition into which the landed 
 proprietors had gradually fallen is thus described by a Virginian, 
 in the Southern Planter. " Every farm was greatly impoverished 
 almost every estate was seriously impaired some were 
 involved in debt to nearly their value. . . . No farm, whether 
 of a rich or a poor proprietor, had escaped great exhaustion. . . . 
 Every one was desirous to sell his land, and move to the fertile 
 and far West, and a general emigration and dispersion were only 
 prevented by the impossibility of finding purchasers for the 
 lands, even at half the then low market prices." 3 In 1832, a 
 member of the State Legislature 4 declared that, " In that part of 
 the State situated on the rivers below tide-water, the whole 
 face of the country wears an appearance of utter desolation. 
 The very spot on which our ancestors landed, two hundred 
 years ago, appears to be on the point of again becoming the 
 haunt of wild beasts." It was in the midst of these discouraging 
 circumstances, that a new pursuit was opened to recruit the 
 finances and enkindle the hopes of the agriculturists of Virginia 
 the breeding of slaves for Southern cotton fields. 
 
 Slavery had produced the same results in the Carolinas and 
 
 1 Olmsted s " Seaboard Slave States," p. 250. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 267. 
 
 3 Ibid. p. 274. 
 
 4 Helper, op. cif. p. 88. See also Mr. Faulkner s speech, ante., p. 43. 
 
I CHANGE OF SENTIMENT. 55 
 
 Georgia as in Virginia ; the general poverty was perhaps even 
 greater there than in Virginia, because they had no agricul 
 tural monopoly of the same importance as tobacco. But, in the 
 beginning of the present century, the prospects of those States 
 brightened under the growing demand for Cotton. 
 
 Until about the close of the Eevolutionary war, the cotton- 
 plant had been cultivated only as an ornament to gardens. In 
 1784, according to Mr. De Bow, eight bales of cotton, which had 
 been shipped from America, were seized at the English Custom 
 House, under the belief that so large a quantity could not have 
 come from that source. In 1790, the exportation was only eighty- 
 one bales. 1 But, at about this period, improved machinery was 
 invented in England and America for cleaning and weaving 
 cotton, so that the demand for it increased amazingly. In 1794, 
 the cotton-crop was valued at $500,000; in 1800, at $5,000,000. 
 It was evident, however, that this growing demand could only be 
 supplied by increasing the number of slaves; for then, as ever 
 since, the whites would not work in the cotton-fields. But, in 
 1774-5, the colonies, as we have seen, had agreed to discourage 
 the foreign slave-trade, the Carolinas and Georgia as well as the 
 others. In 1787-8, these colonies, or rather States, refused to 
 allow a clause absolutely and at once prohibiting the traffic in 
 slaves to be introduced into the new Constitution, and thus the 
 trade was left open for twenty years. South Carolina did, from 
 year to year, prohibit her own citizens engaging in it, until 1804, 
 from which time until 1808 it was unrestricted; and during 
 those four years, no less than 35,532 2 Africans were introduced 
 into the port of Charleston alone. Most, if not all, the other 
 
 1 Bigelow, op. cit. p. 370. 
 
 2 The author of a pamphlet, "La Revolution Americaine devoileo," Paris, 
 1861, seems to think that the people of the Slave States had a much greater 
 aversion to the slave-trade than any other people ; and yet, according to his own 
 statement, about one-eleventh of the whole number of slaves introduced into 
 Charleston were introduced by Southerners (3,543), while the entire white 
 population of the Slave States, at the period in question, could not have been 
 over one million, which was a small fractional part of the population of Great 
 Britain, France, Holland, and the Northern States of America, which were 
 likewise engaged in the slave-trade. Again, the commercial tonnage of the 
 South was utterly insignificant as compared with that of these others combined, 
 or of any one of them. The same writer mentions, with great satisfaction, that 
 the consignees of the slavers were natives of Charleston, 13 ; of the North, 88 ; 
 of Great Britain, 91 ; of France, 10 ; total, 202 : and these figures, he thinks, 
 
56 SLAVEKY. 
 
 States did interdict tlie slave-trade to their own citizens pre 
 vious to the year 1808, at which time the prohibition of the 
 Constitution took effect. Subsequently to this period, the 
 cotton planters became dependent upon the Northern Slave 
 States for fresh slaves, over and above the supply afforded by 
 the natural increase of their own black populations. And as 
 the demand for cotton grew with immense rapidity, and as new 
 Slave States were being added to the Union, in which cotton 
 was the great staple of production, this natural increase of the 
 slave population by no means kept pace with the necessities of 
 the planters. 
 
 The only source whence the needed slaves could be obtained 
 was the Northern Border Slave States, and especially Virginia. 
 The temptation thus presented was too strong to be resisted. 
 Slavery, which had begun to be looked upon as a dreadful evil 
 that must be thrown off, not only for its moral influences, but 
 for the enormous expense and loss it entailed, now resumed its 
 hold upon the planters as a means of retrieving their fortunes. 
 Legitimate agriculture, which, under the example of a few 
 intelligent farmers, was beginning to improve in character, was 
 comparatively abandoned ; land became of less importance than 
 slaves ; and, in consequence of the high price of labour, improve 
 ments of all sorts, of a public nature, and all industrial pursuits, 
 have been more and more neglected, to the great detriment of 
 the State. 1 
 
 The number of slaves annually sold from the Border States to 
 the cotton-growing States is very large. In 1857 a Committee 
 of the Legislature of South Carolina reported that, from 1 840 to 
 1850, no less than 235,000 slaves had been obtained from this 
 source, most of them being able-bodied and in the prime of life ; 
 Of these nearly one-half came from Virginia. Estimating each 
 of these as worth from five hundred to seven hundred dollars, we 
 have the apparent profit which the breeding States have derived 
 from this novel industry. And this is almost the sole profit 
 which they, and especially Virginia, have, for years past, obtained 
 
 prove the comparative detestation in which the Oharlestonians held this traffic. 
 But Charleston, at that period, 1804-1808, contained only 20,000 inhabitants, 
 Avith a veiy small amount of shipping ; yet it furnished almost one- fifteenth part 
 of all the consignees of the slave cargoes. 
 
 1 Olmsted s "Seaboard Slave States," loc. cif. 
 
CHANGE OF SENTIMENT. 57 
 
 from slavery. Mr. Clay 1 said, in 1829, " Nowhere in the farming 
 portion of the United States would slave-labour be generally 
 employed, if the proprietors were not tempted to raise slaves to 
 sell, by the high price paid for them in the cotton-growing 
 States." Judge Upshur, of Virginia, stated at a Convention, that 
 a law passed in Louisiana, in 1829, interposing obstacles to the 
 introduction of slaves into that State, caused a decline of 25 per 
 cent, in the value of slaves in Virginia. Governor Wise declared 
 that the failure to secure the admission of California as a Slave 
 State, in 1850, occasioned a loss to Virginia of $4,000 for each 
 able-bodied negro she possessed. 2 
 
 The increasing value of slave property was an argument used 
 in the Legislature of Virginia, in 1832, against abolition. Mr. 
 Gholson contended that slave-owners were as much entitled to 
 the annual profit on their female slaves, as the owners of land, or 
 the owners of orchards, to the annual increase from these. " It 
 is in reliance on the justice and inviolability of this maxim," 
 said he, " that the master foregoes the service of the female slave, 
 has her nursed and attended during the period of gestation, and 
 raises the helpless offspring. The value of the property justifies 
 the expense; and I do not hesitate to say, that its increase 
 constitutes much of our wealth." 3 
 
 Thus the true reason why the people of the Slave States to-day 
 
 1 Helper, op. cit. p. 163. 
 
 2 Cairnes, op. cit. pp. 127-137. It might have been supposable, a priori, that, 
 under such a drain as this, slavery would be exhausted in the breeding States. 
 In fact it was said this would prove to be the case by those who wished, at the 
 origin of the internal slave-trade, to discover some compensating good for that 
 which instinctively struck everyone as an unmitigated enormity, worse even 
 than the foreign slave-trade. But the reverse has been the case. From 1790 to 
 1800, the slave-population of Virginia increased 17 84 per cent. ; from 1810 to 
 1820, only 8 31 per cent. ; so that slavery seemed to be dying a natural death. 
 But Missouri was admitted as a Slave State in 1820, and from 1820 to 1830 the 
 slave population of Virginia had increased 10 49 per cent. From 1830 to 1840 
 the rate of increase was smaller again, 4 40 per cent. ; but Texas was admitted 
 into the Union as a Slave State in 1845, and the slave population of Virginia 
 increased at the rate of 5 21 per cent, from 1840 to 1850 (United States Census 
 Report, 1860). The reason of this seeming paradox is simple. Slaves in Virginia 
 being prized, more than formerly, as breeders rather than as labourers, are better 
 cared for, better fed, and not hardly worked. In 1860, the slaves in Virginia, 
 instead of having diminished since 1850, under the drain of the internal slave- 
 trade, which carried off not less than 10,000 yearly, had increased by 28,337. 
 
 3 Olmsted, op. cit. p. 282. Mr. Ruffin, of Virginia, says that "a gang of 
 
58 SLAVERY. 
 
 think so differently of slavery from their fathers is, simply, that 
 the institution pays a better percentage than it did sixty years 
 ago. The production and sale of cotton, and the production and 
 sale of slaves have apparently retarded the ruin of Virginia and 
 the Carolinas, only to make that ruin ultimately more wide 
 spread and more complete ; an additional few have been enriched 
 at the expense of additional millions who have been made each 
 year more poor and more wretched by the prolongation of 
 slavery. It has not been, then, the fanaticism of Northern 
 Abolitionists, but " the ignoble love of gold " of the planters and 
 slave-dealers ; it has not been any improvement in the nature 
 and results of the system, but " the greed of wealth " obtainable 
 therefrom, which has so changed its whole aspect in the estima 
 tion of Southern statesmen, and has induced them to make it 
 " the corner-stone " of their new political fabric. 
 
 slaves on a farm will increase to four times their original number in thirty or 
 forty years. If a farmer is only able to feed and maintain his slaves, their 
 increase in value may double the whole of his capital originally invested in 
 farming, before he closes the term of an ordinary life. But few farms are able 
 to support this increasing expense, and also to furnish the necessary supplies to 
 the family of the owner ; whence very many owners of large estates in lands and 
 negroes are, throughout their lives, too poor to enjoy the comforts of life, or to 
 incur the expenses necessary to improve their unprofitable farming. . . . The 
 income of few persons increases as fast as their slaves ; and, if not, the consequence 
 must be that some of them will be sold to support the rest ; and the sale of more 
 is, perhaps, afterwards compelled, to pay debts incurred in striving to put off that 
 dreaded alternative. The slave at first almost starves his master, and at last is 
 eaten by him at least, is exchanged for his value in food " (Ibid. p. 280). What 
 a picture of the Virginia Aristocracy ! Thus even this new source of wealth is a 
 fallacious one. It Avas right that such a cursed source of gain should ruin its 
 pursuers. Actseon was devoured by his own hounds. 
 
ITS ENCROACHMENTS. 59 
 
 III. 
 
 THE ENCROACHMENTS OF SLAVERY. 
 
 HAVING become convinced by their cupidity that " slavery l is 
 a great moral, social, and political blessing a blessing to the 
 slave, and a blessing to the master," the leading men of the 
 South have devoted themselves, for the last forty years or more, 
 to perpetuate the system. And herein consists the great folly 
 and crime of the South, and, to a less extent, of the whole 
 United States. Slavery had been entailed upon the colonies by 
 Great Britain, 2 for the sake of the gains derived from the African 
 slave-trade. The colonies had declared, as one of their grievances 
 against the King and Government of England, that their repeated 
 efforts to prevent this traffic had been invariably " defeated by 
 His Majesty s negative." Yet after they had abjured the Eoyal 
 authority, they themselves deliberately re-instated the African 
 slave-trade, which they had, for a short time, prohibited. And 
 not content with increasing their slave-population, the cotton- 
 growing States had refused to exclude slavery from all the public 
 territory, and had reserved more than 180,000 square miles of it 
 for the extension of the institution. 3 
 
 The continued extension of slavery over new territories could 
 only be accomplished by the Slave States acquiring and main 
 taining political supremacy in national affairs. It was necessary 
 that they should possess in the United States Senate, to which 
 each State sends two delegates, if not an actual majority of 
 votes, at least a minority large enough to prevent any legislation 
 hostile to their policy. They could not hope to retain a majority 
 
 1 Senator Brown, of Mississippi, quoted by Mr. Sumncr in his Speech on the 
 Barbarism of Slavery," p. 7. 
 
 2 See the Stipulations of the Treaty of Utrecht. 
 
 3 Ante, p. 41. 
 
GO SLAVERY, 
 
 in the House of Bepresentatives, because the population of the 
 Free States, increasing much more rapidly than that of the Slave 
 States, determined the political complexion of that Chamber. 
 But the assent of the Senate was necessary to the enactment of 
 all important laws. 
 
 From the adoption of the Constitution until 1819, the ques 
 tion of slavery was in abeyance. Four new States, formed out 
 of the territory ceded to the General Government in 1787, and 
 from which slavery was excluded by the act of cession, were 
 successively admitted as Free States ; and four others, formed 
 out of the territory reserved by the Carolinas and Georgia, were 
 received as Slave States, together with Louisiana, a portion of 
 the territory purchased from France, and in which slavery was 
 allowed in virtue of the treaty of purchase. Thus, in 1819, the 
 Union was composed of eleven States of each category. 
 
 Since that time the history of the two sections is but a recital 
 of perpetual conflicts on the slavery question, the South boldly 
 advancing upon the North as timidly retreating. The reason of 
 this is twofold. The South, since 1820, has been always united 
 upon this all-engrossing interest, while the North has been 
 divided by conflicting questions of commerce, agriculture, manu 
 factures, &c. However severed, at times, on the Bank question, 
 on the Tariff policy, on the subject of internal improvements by 
 the National Government, &c., &c., the cry of Slavery has rallied 
 all the Southern forces around the black banner, and has 
 recruited these largely from Northern mercenaries, hungry for 
 the spoils of victory. Again, the patriotism of the Northern 
 people has not been hemmed in by narrow State limits. While 
 the Southerner has been devoted to Virginia, or Carolina, or 
 Tennessee, the Northern man has held to the grand Union of all 
 the States, as the palladium of prosperity and safety. 
 
 It has been to preserve domestic peace, and this Union one 
 and indivisible, into which, as they firmly believe, the hopes of 
 liberal men all over the world have been garnered, that the 
 Northern people have yielded to the wild and incendiary threats 
 of Southern slaveholders, until further yielding had become 
 impossible. 
 
 It will not be necessary for us to recount the various steps of 
 Southern aggressions on freedom and free territory accompanied 
 always by threats of bloodshed, civil war, and disunion, whenever 
 
ITS ENCROACHMENTS. 61 
 
 those encroachments were opposed from Missouri to Kansas. 
 The London Times has thus summed up the story for us : 
 
 "Let there be no mistake as to English opinion on this subject. If we 
 have paid a sincere homage to the rising greatness of America, it has not 
 been to that which Southerners are anxious to preserve, but to that which 
 they are striving to destroy. All that is noble and venerable in the United 
 States is associated with its Constitution. It is not the demonstrations of 
 Southern ruffianism in Congress ; or the filibustering aggrandisement of 
 the South ; or the Fugitive Slave Law ; or the Dred Scott decisions ; or 
 the Kansas-Nebraska Act ; it is not these, or any other, triumphs of 
 Democratic insolence that have challenged the admiration of Europe. 
 Mr. Lincoln will carry with him the support of those who, however to 
 lerant of slavery, will not tamely acquiesce in its becoming the basis of an 
 illegal and hostile confederacy." Nov. 29, 1 860. 
 
 And again : 
 
 " No stretch of fanaticism on the part of the North has been so 
 extravagant as the doctrines openly avowed by the South. In their 
 passionate effrontery they have loudly declared that slavery, so far from 
 being a blemish, is a positive blessing to a country ; that it is the only 
 true basis of labour, and the best cement of social institutions. They 
 have claimed the right, not only of preserving it for the present, but of 
 perpetuating it for all time, and of extending it into every territory 
 annexed to the American Union. One by one they have set aside all 
 barriers in the shape of limits and compromises, and have driven their 
 principles, by sheer force, down the throats of their opponents." Jan. 4, 
 1861. 
 
 "Eheu! fugaces, fugaces, anni!" The Times, the journal of 
 all England, is now the avowed advocate of this very " illegal 
 and hostile confederacy." and the champion of slavery out of 
 the Bible. 
 
 But the North was thoroughly aroused by this accumulation 
 of aggressions, and by the fact that her own trusted public men 
 had contributed to her degradation. The Republican party 
 almost triumphed in 1856, and was completely successful in 
 1860. Mr. Douglas, who had betrayed the interests of freedom 
 and humanity, by consenting to the rupture of the Missouri 
 Compromise, to gain Southern support in his Presidential canvass, 
 was defeated, and Mr. Lincoln, pledged to the non-extension of 
 slavery, was elected President of the United States. 
 
 But the ambition of the Pro-slavery party was not limited to 
 the territory of the United States. Acting upon the conviction 
 expressed by the Rev. Dr. Palmer, of New Orleans, that its 
 
62 SLAVERY. 
 
 " mission is to preserve and transmit to posterity its system 
 of slavery, by obtaining for it the right to go and take root 
 wherever nature and Providence can support it," the South has 
 cast longing looks on neighbouring countries. 
 
 From 1849 to 1858, various attempts were made to invade and 
 possess Cuba, by armed expeditions from the Southern coast, in 
 secret understanding with malcontents on the island. But all 
 these efforts failed, sometimes by the interference of the American 
 Government, sometimes by the action of the Spanish authorities. 
 
 In furtherance of the same design, a Conference was held at 
 Ostend, in 1854, between three of the United States ministers 
 accredited to foreign Courts. These men Mr. Buchannan, of 
 Pennsylvania, Mr. Mason, of Virginia, and Mr. Soule, of 
 Louisiana prepared a manifesto, 1 which was made public. In 
 this they had the monstrous effrontery to declare, " It is per 
 fectly clear to every reflecting man that, by its geographical 
 position, Cuba naturally belongs to the United States. ... If 
 Spain, deaf to the voice of her own interest, and impelled by 
 blind pride and a false sentiment of honour, refuses to sell the 
 island of Cuba to the United States, then, by all laws, human 
 and divine, we shall have the right to snatch it from her if we 
 are sufficiently powerful to do so." The Convention of the 
 Democratic party, assembled at Cincinnati in 1856, substantially 
 ratified this Ostend manifesto by choosing Mr. Buchannan, one 
 of its authors, as the candidate of that party for the Presidency. 
 
 In 1858, Mr. Buchannan, elected President, proposed to Con 
 gress to carry out the Ostend programme. Mr. Slidell, now 
 Confederate Commissioner to France, endeavoured to induce the 
 Senate to allow the President a credit of $30,000,000 for the 
 purpose of opening negotiations for the purchase of Cuba. And, 
 at the same time, Mr. Mason, lately Confederate Commissioner to 
 England, proposed that discretionary powers, including the em 
 ployment of the naval and land forces of the United States, should 
 be conferred upon the President, to facilitate this coveted acqui 
 sition. The Senate rejected both these propositions ; but they 
 clearly show the extreme lengths to which the South was willing 
 to go, under the impulsion of two of the men who are now the 
 most active agents of Southern independence, to secure the 
 extension of slavery. Is it supposable that the Southern leaders 
 
 1 "Les Etats-Unis en 18C3," p. 130. 
 
ITS ENCROACHMENTS. 63 
 
 will be less determined, or less scrupulous, on behalf of their 
 favourite institution, if the clog of Northern opposition shall be 
 removed ? 
 
 In 1854 occurred the marauding expedition of Walker against 
 Nicaragua. His object was not only to re-establish slavery in 
 that country, where it had been abolished, but also and especially 
 to gain possession of a suitable base of operations against Cuba. 
 His first purpose was temporarily accomplished : slavery was re 
 established by a Constitution prepared at New Orleans. But 
 Walker and his party were soon driven out of the country. 1 
 
 In view of the immense area of the Slave States, one is com 
 pelled to ask, What need had they of more territory ? With a 
 superficies of 550,000,000 of acres, of which not one-seventh part 
 is cultivated, why should Southern slaveholders have coveted 
 more ? The answer is easy. First, they wanted new States " to 
 redress the balance of the old." Secondly, they needed a bound 
 less area of virgin soil to take the place of the lands exhausted 
 by slave agriculture, which is so superficial, so careless, so expen 
 sive, and so limited in its range, as to render recuperation by 
 rest, by rotation of crops, by manures, &c., impossible. Hence 
 the vast majority of planters are obliged to forsake those lands 
 from which they have reaped the first exuberance, and to take 
 up fresh soil, which they abandon in turn after short cultivation. 
 Judge Warner, in advocating, before the Legislature of Georgia, 
 the necessity of continually extending Southern territory, gave 
 the following reasons 2 for that necessity : 
 
 " In this House, or out of it, who but knows perfectly well that, when 
 ever slavery is confined within certain specified limits, its future existence 
 is doomed ? It is then only a question of time as to its final destruction. 
 You may take any single slave-holding county 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 im 
 possible 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 
 
 1 For a sketch of these various efforts of the South, see " Les Etats-Unis en 
 1863 ;" Ludlow s "History of the United States," &c. &c. 
 
 2 Daily News, June 18th, 1863 ; sec also Professor Cairnes Remarks on Slave 
 Agriculture, op. cit. 
 
64 SLAVERY. 
 
 any one county, the same would happen in all the slaveholding States, 
 Slavery cannot be confined within certain limits without producing the 
 destruction of both master and slave ; it requires fresh lands" 
 
 We shall have occasion to quote abundance of Southern 
 testimony to prove that this exhausting effect of slave labour 
 has taken place all over the Slave States. 
 
 By the election of Mr. Lincoln, the South saw that it was the 
 evident determination of the Northern people that there should 
 be no more acquisition of territory for slave culture, and that 
 the old territory should not be prostituted to this purpose. 
 Consequently, three courses lay before the Southern leaders : 
 they must either submit to the starvation necessity, so logically 
 predicted by Judge Warner ; or they must themselves inaugurate 
 a gradual Abolition policy ; or they must secede from the Union, 
 for the express purpose, and with the calm determination, to acquire 
 new territory, and a Government of their own. They chose this 
 last alternative, 1 and began the war by attacking Fort Sumter, 
 and seizing upon United States custom-houses, arsenals, post- 
 offices, &c. &c. 
 
 But out of the Union, as in it, the same stern necessity for 
 extension must urge the South to new conquests for continued 
 existence, and each acquisition will but make the final destruc 
 tion of the system, and the ruin of its abettors, more sure and 
 
 i The acquisition of the public territories has been for many years the grand 
 object of Southern covetousness. In 1852, it assumed the form of a demand 
 that Congress should not interfere at all with the matter, but should leave the 
 settlers of those territories (from which it had been for ever excluded by the 
 terms of the Missouri Compromise of 1820) to establish slavery therein, or to 
 exclude it, as they might see fit. This was refused by the Democratic party of 
 the North at that time, but was subsequently accepted by it in 1856, and, as the 
 result, Mr. Buchannan was elected. In 1860, the South, not contented with this 
 disposition of the question, which had been summarily rejected by the people of 
 Kansas, where it was first tried, demanded that slavery should be established by 
 law in all the territories. The Democratic party of the North, led by Mr. 
 Douglas, did not dare to commit such a political suicide as this, and consequently 
 Mr. Lincoln was elected President, simply in consequence of the split thus 
 occasioned in the ranks of his opponents. (Letter published in the Raleigh 
 Standard, of North Carolina, August, 1863 ; Annuaire des Deux Mondcs, 1860 ; 
 " Les Etats-Unis en 1863," &c. &c.) And even after the election of Mr. Lincoln, 
 a delegation from the Border States waited upon him to endeavour to induce him 
 to yield this point, in the hope of preventing war. The delegation insisted upon 
 the right to carry slaves into the territories, and Mr. Lincoln refused. (Speech of 
 Ex-Governor Moorhead, of Kentucky, delivered in England, quoted by Professor 
 Cairnes in a Lecture on the American War. ) 
 
ITS ENCROACHMENTS 65 
 
 more disastrous. There is something transcen Jently impressive in 
 the comprehensiveness and certainty of this retributive justice, 
 by which slavery is made to avenge itself, by reason of the very 
 evils which spring from it. Everywhere, those who have par 
 ticipated in the guilt are being made sharers in the punishment. 
 Southern authorities, at all periods, have painted in darkest 
 colours the deplorable effects of the institution upon Southern 
 society the poverty, the ignorance, the gross corruption of 
 morals, the lawlessness, and crime. 1 The worst passions and 
 propensities of the dominant race ambition, pride, lust, cupi 
 dity, indolence developed to their highest pitch, have returned 
 to plague it for the injustice and cruelty it has wreaked upon 
 the negro. The system might easily have been abolished, as 
 was urged by the best and wisest, wlien the colonies themselves 
 became free ; it might have been abolished at any time since, 
 with the glad assent of the North, had the South so willed it. 2 
 But, instead of abolition, we have had continual extension. And 
 now, at last, to prevent for ever that consummation, the leaders 
 of the South have inaugurated a civil war, without which, 
 humanly speaking, abolition would have been impossible, but of 
 which every day s continuance makes this result more sure. The 
 whites have sent their fathers, husbands, sons, and brothers to 
 fight for the preservation of slavery ; scarce a house or a hut in 
 
 1 In 1837, the Governor of Kentucky, in kis message to the Legislature, said, 
 " We long to see the day when the law shall assert its majesty, and stop the 
 wanton destruction of life which almost daily occurs within the jurisdiction of 
 this commonwealth. Men slaughter each other with almost perfect impunity," 
 &c., &c. In the same year, the Governor of Alabama declared to the Legislature, 
 "We hear of homicides in different pa-rts of the State continually, and yet have 
 few convictions, and still fewer executions. Why do we hear of stabbmgs and 
 shootings almost daily in some part or other of our State ? " The New Orleans 
 Bee, of May 23, 1838, speaks of "this frightful deluge of human blood that 
 flows through our streets and our places of public resort." (Mr. Sumner s 
 " Speech on the Barbarism of Slavery," pp. 43, 44.) 
 
 3 In 1826, a proposition was made in Congress that the proceeds of the sale of 
 the public lands should be set apart, after the payment of the public debt, for the 
 manumission of the slaves. In 1827, it was proposed that a national tax should 
 be levied for the purchase and enfranchisement of all the slaves, at the average 
 price of $250. At that time there was not quite a million of slaves in the country. 
 Neither of these propositions was accepted by the South. At no time would the 
 South accede to the proposition, often made, to purchase and free the slaves in 
 the district of Columbia, the seat of the National Government. This was one of 
 the first acts of Congress after the election of Mr. Lincoln. 
 
 F 
 
66 SLAVERY. 
 
 all the land wherein is not one dead ; but the slave, as the 
 incarnation of so much gold, is shielded from danger and harm 
 by the considerate selfishness of his master. Suffering and want 
 seem to be the common lot of all the ruling race ; yet from all 
 these the slave is, as much as possible, shielded, that he may 
 continue to be a slave. 
 
 " But there s a Divinity that shapes our ends, 
 Bough hew them as we will." 
 
 Plagues, ten-fold worse than those which the immediate hand 
 of God hurled upon the land of Egypt, have been brought upon 
 the South by the deliberate acts of her own sons, that a bondage 
 tenfold worse than that of Egypt shall be broken, and that an 
 enslaved people shall become FREE. 
 
 But the South has no thought of submitting to this abandon 
 ment of slavery. All the prominent organs of the Southern 
 press proclaim the opposite. Even the Financial Agent of the 
 Confederacy in England, who may be supposed to have been 
 informed of the sources whence his Government hopes to draw 
 the wealth to enable it to pay its war-debt, and its future ex 
 penses, pictures in rapturous language its "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 dominions ; combining the 
 productions of the great valley of the Mississippi with the 
 mineral riches, the magical beauty, the volcanic grandeur of 
 Mexico and commanding the materials of commerce throughout 
 this wide expanse, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, no longer 
 trammelled by the restrictions, nor taxed by the cupidity, of 
 others." 
 
 How naturally this rich prospect makes the imagination of the 
 financier to glow ! 
 
 " Ah non sapete 
 I simpatici effetti prodigiosi, 
 Che produce in lui la dolce idea dell oro ! 
 
 All 1 idea di quel metallo 
 
 Portentoso, onnipossente, 
 
 Un vulcano la sua mente 
 
 Gia comincia a diventar." Figaro. 
 
 But, presently, the Financial Agent, as if afraid of having allowed 
 
ITS ENCROACHMENTS. 67 
 
 a weighty secret to escape him, of having exhibited too much 
 of the fangs and terrible claws of his pet, reclothes it in the 
 sheep-skin in which it suits the policy of the English friends of 
 the South that the Confederacy should at present appear ; and, 
 a few pages further 011 says, " Be our ignorance of the merits of 
 this question never so great, we behold a country of vast extent 
 and large numbers earnestly desiring self-government. It 
 threatens none, demands nothing, attacks no one, but wishes to 
 rule itself and be let alone." 1 
 
 1 Spence s "American Union," pp. 287, 291. 
 
68 SLAVERY. 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE KE-OPENING OF THE SLAVE-TEADE. 
 
 IF fresh soil, without limit, be necessary to the existence of 
 slavery, and to the continued prosperity of the South, fresh 
 slaves is a far more pressing necessity. The former will be a 
 want for future consideration ; the latter is the great need of 
 the day. 
 
 Hitherto, but 1 ^^. per cent, of the land in the Slave States 
 has been brought into cultivation. Its largest production of 
 cotton in any one year was 5,196,944 bales, in 1860 ; while its 
 capacity is estimated by Mr. De Bow at from 50 to 100 millions 
 of bales annually, if the soil adapted to its culture could be 
 worked. The demand for cotton has been continually increasing, 
 at the average annual rate of 87,880 bales, of 450 pounds each, 
 for the last ten years, from England aione ; leaving a con 
 siderable deficiency to be supplied by inferior cotton from other 
 countries than the Southern United States : which deficiency 
 amounted, in I860, to more than 386,000 bales for England. 
 Besides the English demand, there is considerably more than 
 one-half as much to be furnished to other manufacturing nations. 
 The price has risen steadily, notwithstanding the steady augmen 
 tation in the supply. In 1844-5, the crop was 2,394,503 bales, 
 of 400 pounds each, and the average price was 8f cents per 
 pound, in Liverpool. In 1859-60, the crop was 4,675,770 bales, 
 and the price 11 cents per pound. Everything, in short, has 
 been favourable soil, climate, demand, increasing price to the 
 production of as much American cotton as would be required to 
 supply all demands at a fair remuneration, excepting one requi 
 site only, namely, an abundance of labour. And here we have 
 the astounding obstacle, that the higher the price of cotton, the 
 less remunerative, under slave labour, does the cultivation of 
 
RE -OPENING OF THE SLAVE TRADE. 69 
 
 cotton become. Mr. De Bow declares that " the great limitation 
 to the production of cotton is the scarcity of labour. Whenever 
 cotton rises to ten cents per pound, labour becomes too dear to in 
 crease production rapidly " i. e. under the stimulus of high prices 
 for cotton, the demand for slaves occasions such an advance in 
 their value, that cotton-planting almost ceases to be profitable. 
 It is estimated 1 that each additional cent per pound in the price 
 of cotton, adds one hundred dollars to the average cost of slaves in 
 the United States. 
 
 How is this difficulty to be obviated ? is the problem which 
 has long perplexed the Southern mind. Free labour had already 
 begun to assist in its solution : even in 1850, under the spur of 
 high prices, one-ninth of all the cotton produced was by free 
 labour, and the amount has gone on increasing. But free white 
 labourers are tabooed in slave countries ; the native whites, for 
 the most part, consider field-labour as degrading, and slavery 
 prevents the immigration of whites who would be willing to 
 work. Hence, the cotton-crop must be almost entirely depen 
 dant upon slave labour, so long as slavery endures as the 
 predominant system. 
 
 The internal slave-trade has failed to supply the amount of 
 labour requisite to the demands of the cotton-growing States, 
 although it is computed 2 that, from 1840 to 1860, no less than 
 488,258 slaves, most of them able-bodied labourers, had been 
 sold from the Northern Slave States, at a cost of about two 
 hundred millions of dollars. 
 
 The African slave-marts alone could satisfy the craving 
 demands of the Cotton States. Consequently, it has been 
 towards a re-opening of the African slave-trade that Southern 
 policy has been directed. But under the Union, and especially 
 
 1 Stirling s " Letters from the Slave States," p. 305. 
 
 2 " Report of the Boston Board of Trade to the Government, for 1863." We 
 are happy to acknowledge our indebtedness to that valuable publication for the 
 facts we have given above. The author says that the increase of the slave 
 population of the United States, from 1840 to 1850, was in the ratio of 28 91 per 
 cent., which, applied to the eight principal cotton States, would give an increase 
 of 240,313 slaves. The actual increase, however, was 537,939, showing an 
 importation from the Northern Slave States of 297,626 during that decade. The 
 ratio of increase from 1850 to 1860 was 23 35 per cent., which would have given 
 for the cotton States an increase of 422,464 slaves; the actual increase was 
 613,096, showing an importation of 190,632 during that period (p. 109). 
 
70 SLAVEEY. 
 
 under the supremacy of Northern principles, such as were 
 clearly indicated in the election of Mr. Lincoln, the re-opening 
 of the African slave-trade was an impossibility. Hence the 
 leaders of the South determined to throw off this obstacle. 
 Secession, therefore, was undertaken in order to fulfil the two 
 fold necessity of Southern policy indefinite supply of land, and 
 free-trade in slaves. 
 
 For more than ten years this latter topic has occupied the 
 attention of Southern economists. Among the first movers in 
 the matter was Mr. Yancey, Senator from Alabama. He did 
 not hesitate to proclaim that free-trade in negroes was just as 
 legitimate a branch of commerce " as free-trade in donkeys or 
 nutmegs," and that it was vastly more essential to the prosperity 
 of the South than free-trade in any other sort of merchandise. 
 Mr. Yancey, it will be remembered, was the first Commissioner 
 chosen by the Confederate Government to represent it at the 
 Court of Abolition England. In fact, the very men who have 
 all along been the most active in the development of this car 
 dinal feature of Southern policy are they who are foremost 
 in the Government of the Confederacy, and in furthering its 
 plans abroad. 
 
 The idea of free-trade in negroes rapidly became popularized, 
 the more so, as it opened the way by which the possession of 
 slaves might become much more general amongst the whites 
 than it has been, or ever could be, under the monopoly of the 
 Border States. Soon it became a prominent subject of discus 
 sion at public meetings. In 1856, at a Commercial Convention 
 held in Savannah, the re-opening of the African slave-trade was 
 publicly debated ; even the delegates from Virginia advocated 
 the measure. 1 The Hon. L. W. Spratt, of South Carolina, said, 
 " The first reason for its revival is, that it will give political 
 power to the South. Imported slaves will increase our repre 
 sentation in the National Legislature. More slaves will give us 
 more States ; and it is, therefore, within the power of the rude, 
 untutored savages we may bring from Africa, to restore to the 
 South the influence she has lost by the suppression of the trade. 
 We want only that kind of population ivhich will extend and 
 secure our peculiar institutions, and there is no other source but 
 Africa." Mr. Stephens, now Vice-President of the Southern 
 
 1 Ludlow s "History of the United States," p. 261. 
 
HE-OPENING OF THE SLAVE TRADE. 71 
 
 Confederacy, declared, "We can divide Texas into five Slave 
 States, and get Chihuaha, Sonora, &c., if we have the slave 
 population ; and it is plain that, unless the number of the 
 African stock be increased, we have not the population, and we 
 might as well abandon the race with our Northern brethren in 
 
 O 
 
 the colonization of the territories. Slave States cannot be made 
 without Africans. I am not telling you to do it ; but it is a 
 serious question concerning our political and domestic policy; 
 and it is useless to wage war about abstract rights, or to 
 quarrel and accuse each other of unsoundness, unless we get 
 more Africans. Negro slavery is but in its infancy." And Mr. 
 Jefferson Davis, now the President of the Confederacy, while 
 objecting to the re-opening of the foreign slave-trade, so far as 
 the interests of Mississippi were concerned, earnestly disclaimed 
 " any coincidence of opinion with those who prate of the inhu 
 manity and sinfidness of the trade. The interest of Mississippi, 
 not of the African," said he, " dictates my conclusion. Her arm 
 is, no doubt, strengthened by a due proportion of the servile 
 caste, but it might be paralyzed by such an afflux as would 
 probably follow if the gates of the African slave-market were 
 thrown open. This conclusion, in relation to Mississippi, is 
 based upon my view of her present condition, not upon general 
 theory. It is not supposed to be applicable to Texas, to New 
 Mexico, or to any future acquisitions to be made south of the 
 Rio Grande." 1 
 
 In 1857, the Governor of South Carolina, in his annual 
 message to the Legislature, denounced the constitutional pro 
 hibition of the trade, "as it discriminated in opposition to. 
 the interests of the South." And Southern Congressmen 2 at 
 Washington did not hesitate to inveigh against the law on this 
 subject. 
 
 The Southern press advocated the restoration. The Charleston 
 Standard proposed, " as a leading principle of the Southern 
 policy, to re-open and legitimate the slave-trade." The True 
 Southern, of Mississippi, suggested "the propriety of stimu 
 lating the zeal of the pulpit by founding a prize for the best 
 sermon in favour of free-trade in negroes." 
 
 At a popular Convention held at Vicksburgh in May, 1859, 
 
 1 Cairnes, "The Slave Power," pp. 242, 243. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 240. 
 
72 SLAVERY. 
 
 a vote in favour 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 elected president. In 
 Alabama, a " League of United Southerners " pronounced the 
 prohibition of the foreign slave-trade to have been an unworthy 
 concession to the demands of Northern fanaticism, and insisted 
 on "the necessity of sustaining slavery, not only where its 
 existence is put directly in issue, but where it is remotely 
 concerned." In the Legislatures of Louisiana and Arkansas 
 Bills advocating it were passed in the Lower Houses, and lost 
 in the Senates of those States only by a small majority. 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." And in fact, 
 many slavers did unquestionably land their cargoes upon the 
 Southern coast in 1859-60. 1 Thus the scheme was fairly 
 launched, even before secession, and while the United States 
 law condemned the slave-trade as piracy, and punished the 
 convicted trader with death. 
 
 In 1857-58 the Government w T as made to aid in the accom 
 plishment of the Southern policy, by protesting against the 
 restricted visitation of suspected slavers under the American 
 nag, on the part of British cruisers. In consequence of the 
 removal of this check, the slave-trade increased immensely. 
 At the same time, 2 Mr. Slidell, the present Confederate Commis 
 sioner to France, urged the Senate to order the withdrawal 
 of the United States cruisers from the coast of Africa, thus 
 removing the only remaining obstacle, imperfect as it had been, 
 to the desecration of the American flag. But the Senate rejected 
 the demand. 
 
 It may be objected that all the above facts occurred before 
 secession, and that since that event the sentiment of the South 
 is no longer favourable to the re-opening of the slave-trade with 
 Africa. We shall see how utterly unfounded is this amiable 
 supposition. 
 
 The first Congress of the Southern States, composed of dele- 
 
 1 Cairnes, " The Slave Power." 
 1 " Lcs Etats-Unis en 1863." 
 
KE-OPENING OF THE SLAVE TKADE. 73 
 
 gates from the six States which at that time had seceded from 
 the Union, met in February, 1861. Among its members were 
 those who were engaged in forming, if they had not already 
 drawn up, the Constitution of the new Confederacy. One of 
 the first Acts of this Congress was a Bill to revive the African 
 slave-trade, not avowedly (for this would have shocked many 
 Southerners, and would have astonished and disgusted England, 
 perhaps), but by so modifying the United States law as really to 
 encourage the traffic. This Confederate Bill proposed to consider 
 the African slave-trade as a mere infraction of Southern law, 
 and to punish the offender by publicly selling the slaver and its 
 cargo for the benefit of the State. The South could desire nothing 
 more than that such seizures and sales should take place very 
 frequently : but no seizure would be likely to be made, for 
 there would probably be no informer against any humane and 
 enterprising Christian who had exposed himself and his property 
 to considerable risk, to say nothing of the opprobrium, for the 
 purpose of conferring so great a boon upon the cotton States. 
 President Davis, of course, vetoed this Bill in a secret message to 
 the Confederate Congress. The President s assigned reasons for 
 his veto were based, undoubtedly, upon the necessities of the 
 Confederacy as regards conciliating European sentiment. His 
 own opinions, as we have seen, were by no means hostile to the 
 object of the Bill, and his associates in the Government, and 
 people of all classes, were in favour of the same, as we have 
 shown. The mere passage of such a measure through the Con 
 federate Congress, only a few days after its assembly, clearly 
 shows that the re-opening of the slave-trade with Africa was the 
 predominating desire of Southern legislators. x 
 
 It is true that, by the Confederate Constitution, " the import 
 ation of negroes of the African race, from any foreign country 
 other than the slave-holding States or territories of the United 
 States of America, is forbidden," and that " Congress is required 
 to pass such laws as shall effectually prevent the same ; " " shall 
 also have power to prohibit the introduction of slaves from any 
 State not a member of, or territory not belonging to, the Con 
 federacy." But the purpose of these clauses is too apparent to 
 need explanation : the first was intended to conciliate Europe, 
 and especially England, while it offered a direct bribe to the 
 
 1 Annuaire dcs Deux Mondes, 1861, pp. 585, 586. 
 
74 SLAVERY. 
 
 Border Slave States which had not yet seceded, and which seemed 
 indisposed to secede, from the Union. The last clause was tan 
 tamount to a declaration to those States : " If you don t join us 
 we will not purchase your slaves, and then there can be no 
 salvation possible for you." The amusing contradiction between 
 these clauses of the Confederate Constitution and those others 
 which directly provide for the maintenance and extension of 
 slavery, 1 taken in connexion with the avowed policy of the 
 leading men of the South for the preceding ten years, the Bill 
 passed by the Confederate Congress to which we have just 
 alluded, the acknowledged pressing need of additional slave- 
 labour, and the declared object of the South in seceding, this 
 contradiction is, we say, too flagrant to excite anything but 
 laughter at the idea that it could impose upon any one. 
 
 It is notorious that great and general dissatisfaction was 
 expressed at these prohibitory clauses of the Constitution. Thus 
 The Southern Confederacy, a journal of Florida, remarked upon 
 them : " For God s sake, and for the sake of consistency, let us 
 not form a Union for the express purpose of maintaining and 
 propagating African slavery, and then, as the Southern Congress 
 has just done, confess our error by enacting a constitutional 
 provision abolishing the African slave-trade ! The re-opening of 
 this trade is a mere matter of expediency, to be determined by 
 legislative enactment hereafter." 2 
 
 But the strongest protest against these clauses of the Consti 
 tution was from the pen of Mr. Spratt, entitled " The Philosophy 
 of Secession," from which we have already quoted. Mr. Spratt 
 contends that the double object of the South should be " to pre 
 serve the rounded form of a social aristocracy " given originally 
 by slavery, and to increase the number of its slaves. Neither of 
 these, he says, can be accomplished unless the African slave- 
 trade be re-opened. He argues that to the just constitution of 
 a slave society as many slaves as whites are necessary. In all 
 the Border Slave States the whites are daily getting more and 
 more in excess of the blacks, in consequence of the drain of the 
 latter to the cotton States, so that those States have become 
 democratized, lukewarm in their attachment to slavery, and 
 half-hearted in their allegiance to the Confederacy. He even 
 
 1 Anfc, p, 33. 
 
 2 Cairncs, nj). cif. p. 290. 
 
RE-OPENING OF THE SLAVE TRADE. 75 
 
 fears that a similar democratizing process may take place in 
 South Carolina, " the purest in its slave condition/ for he finds 
 that slaves are constantly being drawn away not only from the 
 towns but also from the rural districts of that State, to supply 
 the south-western demand ; that the whites, of the poorer non- 
 slave-holding sort, will grow more and more exacting in their 
 claims for political power, and that South Carolina will be more 
 ruined, if possible, than ever. 
 
 The need of the African slave-trade to furnish labourers for 
 Southern fields is too obvious to need proof, in Mr. Spratt s 
 judgment. 
 
 Mr. Spratt thinks very little of the objections urged against 
 the scheme. As to any danger to be apprehended from slave 
 insurrections, when the slaves are under " an ordinary state of 
 martial law, as perfect as that which, in times of popular out 
 break, is the last and surest provision for security and order," 
 he thinks it amounts to nothing. The necessity of consulting 
 foreign opinion and sentiment is not to be thought of. So long- 
 as France and England trade in coolies ; so long as " 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, it were simple to suppose 
 that European States will practise sentiment at the expense of 
 interest. . . As they have no repugnance to slavery in accord 
 ance 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 
 products. An increase of slaves will increase the market and 
 supply. They will pocket their philanthropy and the profits 
 together." 1 
 
 There is, unfortunately, 110 doubt that Mr. Spratt took a more 
 correct measure of the comparative importance of principle as 
 against interest, on this question, in the estimation of the vast 
 majority of the noble and cultivated classes of Englishmen, as 
 well as of the commercial classes, than we of the North did, at 
 the commencement of the war. 
 
 An intercepted despatch from the Confederate Secretary of 
 State to its Commissioner at St. Petersburg!!, throws some light 
 
 1 Appendix to Prof. Cairnes, op. cit, 
 
7 6 SLAVERY. 
 
 on the intentions of the Government of the Confederacy. The 
 Commissioner is directed, in case an attempt should be made by 
 the Eussian Government to introduce into any treaty or negocia- 
 tion any stipulation binding the Confederacy not to re-open the 
 slave-trade, to " assume the position that the consitution of the 
 Confederacy is a compact entered into between independent 
 States, in other words, that no power has been delegated to the 
 Government on the subject," &c., &C. 1 
 
 From all the preceding considerations we think the conclusion 
 is unavoidable, that it is the deliberate intention of the Con 
 federate Government, or of " the sovereign States " of the 
 Confederacy, to re-open the slave-trade with Africa as soon as 
 practicable. In fact, from the evidence we have adduced, it 
 seems to us quite obvious that this measure is absolutely essen 
 tial to the progress of the South under its present economic 
 system. 
 
 Many intelligent people in England profess the belief that 
 slavery is more likely to be abolished under Southern independ 
 ence than if the United States Government should succeed in re 
 ducing the rebellion. Some people are capable of believing any 
 thing, and the more improbable the story, the more thoroughly, 
 if not always the more readily, it is often believed. The super 
 natural itself inspires a sort of credence. It was even said that 
 Mr. Slidell had assured M. Emile de Girardin, in Paris, that 
 " the South was disposed to disencumber itself of slavery, which 
 was rather injurious than advantageous to it." This statement 
 reached America, and Mr. Slidell was obliged to contradict it. 
 In a letter from Paris to the Courier des Etats-Unis, of New 
 York, 2 we read, " Mr. Slidell acknowledges that he said to 
 M. Girardin that the slaves, once free, must leave the South, 
 which would not tolerate a mingling of the two races, and that 
 the expatriation of the negroes was at once the condition of their 
 emancipation and the difficulty. But he has not declared that the 
 South was disposed to disencumber itself of slavery, which was 
 more injurious than advantageous to it. Mr. Slidell could not 
 have made such a declaration for three reasons. The first 
 is, that he has no authority to make it, and that the Govern- 
 
 1 Journal des Debats, April 22, 1863. 
 3 April 3, 1863. 
 
COMPLICITY OF THE NORTH. 77 
 
 ment would no more have it than he, as the question of emanci 
 pation can only be raised by the several States, and not by the 
 Central Government. The second is, that if slavery is destined 
 to disappear one day, or to be modified like all human institu 
 tions, this would not take place on the morrow of a revolution, 
 when the first necessity of the South will be to repair its losses. The 
 third reason is, that the South means to decide this question in 
 full liberty, by its sole authority, and will not make it, in any 
 event, the condition of its recognition by Europe." 
 
 About the same time, the Richmond Examiner, supposed to 
 be the chief exponent of the Government in the press, declared, 
 "The establishment of the Confederacy is a distinct reaction 
 against the mistaken civilization of the age. For liberty, 
 equality, fraternity/ we have deliberately substituted slavery, 
 subordination, government. Eeverently, we feel that our Con 
 federacy is a God-sent missionary to the nations with great truths 
 to preach. . . There are men in these Confederate States who 
 have long deeply and earnestly striven to express, though 
 timidly and speculatively, on what foundations of fact, with 
 what corner-agents of principle, our social institution was one 
 day to be built up fair and bright. Let them speak out in no 
 apologetic tone, nor place us, at their peril, in any deprecautious 
 attitude. This people has surely won the right * to be let alone. 
 They will accept no deduction in politics, in literature, in philo 
 sophy ; they will not follow, but lead ; not borrow, but lend. 
 They are more than content with their own principle of morals 
 and way of life, and will stand upon it to the end, so help them 
 God." 1 
 
 From a careful consideration of all the facts contained in the 
 foregoing pages, we can draw no other conclusion than that the 
 South is thoroughly determined to sink or swim with slavery. 
 
 We do not wish to conceal or extenuate the disgraceful truth 
 that the Slave States have been very materially aided in all their 
 designs, previous to the election of Mr. Lincoln, by influential 
 men and associations of the North. The Democratic party was 
 always in alliance with the South, until that alliance was thrown 
 up by the South itself at the Baltimore and Charleston Conven 
 tions, in 1860. In fact the leaders of the secession movement 
 
 1 May 28, 1863 ; the article is quoted in full in the London Daily Neivs, 
 June 15, 1863. 
 
78 SLAVERY. 
 
 counted largely for their success upon the secret or open aid of 
 their old allies. Nor have they been altogether disappointed. 
 Many, more or less prominent, leaders of the Democratic party at 
 the North have manifested a strong desire and determination to 
 aid them, by throwing all sorts of obstacles in the way of the 
 Government. Under the mask of devotion to popular rights 
 and individual liberty, as guaranteed by the Constitution, these 
 men are the most dangerous enemies to both. They know that 
 their own hold on political power is seriously endangered, if not 
 lost, unless the Union be restored upon its original basis, and 
 their former alliance with the Southern slaveholders renewed. 
 They belong to that class which the immortal Florentine has so 
 well described : 
 
 " A quel cattivo coro 
 Degli Angeli, che non furon ribelli, 
 Ne fur fedeli a Dio, ma per se foro." 
 
 But the South had other allies at the North. The system of 
 labour which, by confining the resources of the South to a single 
 branch of industry, and chiefly to a single product of agricul 
 ture, rendered the Slave States tributary to the capitalists and 
 manufacturers of the North, made these thereby immediately 
 interested in the permanence of " the institution." One of the 
 first results of secession was, to cancel by one act of confiscation 
 or sequestration, the Southern debt to Northern creditors of 
 $300,000,000. Again, the mass of the Northern people, even of 
 the more intelligent, had no adequate conception of the true 
 nature and results of slavery, in its various economic, political 
 and moral phases, nor of the extreme lengths to which the 
 Southern leaders would go ; these people were accustomed to 
 see slavery through Southern spectacles. Even earnest patriots, 
 who really understood " this mystery of iniquity," and who saw 
 the danger it was bringing upon the whole country, and its cor 
 rupting effects upon the entire nation, hesitated to oppose its 
 continued encroachments with all the energy and promptitude 
 the magnitude of the evil demanded, lest the very crisis we are 
 now encountering should be brought about. And, worst of all, 
 the most influential religious bodies of the North, which should 
 have been the watchmen to sound the alarm, cried " peace and 
 safety, when destruction was upon us ; " they feared to disturb 
 
j REVOLUTION AT THE NORTH. 79 
 
 the false tranquillity for which they themselves were, to a great 
 degree, answerable, 1 lest the drowsy peace of the Church should 
 be broken, and the funds for religious enterprises be lessened. 
 It is but a just punishment, therefore, that the North should 
 suffer for the crime, in the profits and guilt of which it has been 
 so largely participant. Both North and South needed this 
 terrible convulsion of all their social and political elements, in 
 order that their moral atmosphere should become purified, and 
 that the people should learn that, in God s government of the 
 universe, national sins are visited by national punishments. 
 
 But, at last, the North, by a variety of considerations, some of 
 which are noble, and others less so, has become awakened to a 
 sense of its duty. Let its people persevere until that duty shall 
 have been thoroughly and well accomplished. Let the Govern 
 ment persist in conquering the rebellion, until slavery, its cause 
 and object, shall have perished with it. This it is bound to do, 
 in order to vindicate in the eyes of its loyal subjects, and of 
 foreign nations, its violated authority ; by its duty to maintain 
 over all its domain the common rights of all its citizens, pur 
 chased by their common resources and common sacrifices ; by 
 the trust committed to it " to establish justice, ensure domestic 
 tranquillity, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings 
 of liberty to ourselves and our posterity ; " by its sacred obliga 
 tions to humanity, outraged in this monstrous attempt to legalize 
 oppression. It is already a great step taken in the path of 
 justice to have begun to abolish so great a wrong as slavery. 
 Patriotism, intelligence, Christianity, will not be wanting to 
 counteract and alleviate the evils which this abolition may 
 occasion. Let us perform, with our whole hearts, to-day the 
 duty which lies immediately before us, and let the morrow 
 take thought for the things of itself. 
 
 We cannot leave this branch of our subject without acknow 
 ledging our debt of gratitude, and rendering our tribute of praise, 
 
 1 That portion of the great Presbyterian body which, after the division of that 
 sect, was known as the Old School, and to which the Southern presbyteries 
 adhered, had always refused to take a decided stand against slavery. The other 
 portion, the New School, was desirous that the Presbyterian Church should declare 
 itself strongly against that institution. Since the war there has been a decided 
 disposition manifested amongst the two parties at the North to re-unite. This 
 looks very much as though slavery had been the teterrima causa of their quarrel, 
 rather than mere doctrinal differences. 
 
80 SLAVERY. 
 
 to those few men Garrison, and Gerrit Smith, and Simmer, and 
 Howe, and others the early apostles of abolition, of whom the 
 country was not worthy. We honour them now as we disliked 
 them once, as being " pestilent fellows," and men of one idea. 
 .But all men who inaugurate great reformations must be pestilent 
 fellows to the men of their day, until their work has been ac 
 complished ; then their worth is recognised ; " their works do 
 follow them." Such men must be men of one idea. This single 
 purpose they must carry about with them at all times; they 
 must incessantly kindle it afresh from their own glowing souls 
 into new life, or it will die in the uncongenial atmosphere in 
 which they move. Thus it was with Howard, and with Wilber- 
 force, and Father Matthew ; thus it was, and still is, with our 
 own Miss Dix, who, wherever she goes and where has she not 
 journeyed, over America, and Europe, and the far East ? carries 
 with her the one idea of mercy to the prisoner, the sick, and the 
 insane ; thus it was with John Knox, and Calvin, and Luther ; 
 thus it was with Peter the Hermit ; thus it was with St. Paul, 
 with his " this one thing I do" People always call such men 
 fanatics ; they must be fanatics, or they will accomplish nothing 
 in the face of the opposition which besets them. And so the 
 early Abolitionists of the United States were fanatics, but they 
 are the Regenerators of America, the Fathers of the second 
 American Independence. Let their zeal, and their intelligence, 
 and their unselfish patriotism live and work among us, until the 
 great work which they began shall be thoroughly done until 
 every American shall be free. 
 
ITS SOCIAL EFFECTS. 81 
 
 V. 
 
 THE EFFECTS OF SLAVERY UPON THE SOCIAL CONDITION 
 OF THE SOUTHERN PEOPLE. 
 
 THE settlement of the Northern and Southern Colonies was 
 made at about the same time, so that the differences in their 
 social progress, which we are about to exhibit, can in no wise be 
 attributed to difference in age. Virginia, the first of the Southern 
 Colonies, was established in 1607 ; New York, the earliest of 
 the Northern, was settled in 1614. But there was a marked 
 difference between the first colonists : those of the Northern 
 section, particularly of New England, were industrious, respect 
 able people, rarely connected with noble European families. 
 They left their native land in search of civil and religious liberty. 
 Generally belonging to the reformed religion, as religious re 
 formists of every name have always done when they have had 
 the power, they denied to non-conformists the liberty which they 
 prized so much for themselves. But they were rigid in their 
 ideas of public and private virtue, they did not tolerate im 
 morality, and they honoured labour and industry. On the other 
 hand, the settlers of the Southern Colonies were, many of them, 
 members of more or less noble English families, whose personal 
 fortunes were ruined by extravagance and vice ; others were 
 criminals, political or religious offenders, or adventurers who 
 had escaped from justice, or had been transported as punishment, 
 or had been sold by the favourites of the court as slaves to work 
 in the colonies, or who had gone thither in search of fortune. All 
 these were miserable elements in a society which could not prosper, 
 save by the industry, zeal, and good conduct of its individual 
 members. The few really good colonists were speedily contami 
 nated by the bad example of the majority. The early history of 
 the Colony of Virginia, as told by Smith and Beverley, is a tale of 
 
 G 
 
82 SLAVERY. 
 
 indolence, lawlessness, immorality and failure. The reputation 
 of the colony, even in the London prisons, which contributed to 
 it so many of their inmates, was such that Smith wrote, " Some 
 did choose to be hanged ere they would go thither, and were 
 This condition of things was necessarily made worse by the im 
 portation, in 1620 and subsequently, of negroes from Africa, 
 who, by their colour, savage habits, and low type of humanity, 
 tended to make labour, in the estimation of the white population, 
 more and more degrading. 
 
 The colonists of the Carolinas were not essentially different 
 from those of Virginia, and their histories are not dissimilar in 
 any important respect. Georgia was at first settled exclusively 
 by honest, industrious and well-behaved poor people from the 
 British towns and, subsequently, from the rural population. 
 Slavery was expressly prohibited by the colonial charter ; but 
 after some years, the colonists were tempted by the vicinity of 
 the slave-holding Carolinas to insist that slavery should be 
 established amongst themselves also. After long and violent 
 discussions between one party which favoured, and another 
 which opposed it, the boon was granted by the king, who re 
 sumed the proprietorship of the colony. 1 
 
 Let us first examine into the effects of Slavery upon the 
 EDUCATIONAL progress of the Southern States. 
 
 One of the advantages claimed for slavery is, that it enables 
 the dominant class to devote itself to intellectual pursuits, to 
 cultivate the arts and graces of social life, and to acquire a 
 knowledge of the political administration of the country. 2 We 
 submit, on the contrary, that in all these respects, slavery has 
 been a hindrance, and that in others of equal, or greater mo 
 ment, it has been positively fatal to progress. It is the North 
 which has established the prosperity and good reputation of the 
 United States. Almost every American name known to Europe 
 in literature, in science, in art, belongs to the North. Almost 
 all the great and useful enterprises of the country, its com- 
 
 1 See the various histories of the United States, and the early English Colonies 
 of America; Colton s "Progress of the United States;" Olmsted s "Seaboard 
 Slave States, " &c. &c. 
 
 2 Address of Governor Hammond, of South Carolina, in the Southern Literary 
 Messenger. 
 
ITS EFFECTS ON EDUCATION. 83 
 
 niercial and industrial successes, are due to Northern capital, 
 energy, and intelligence. It is the North which has established 
 all the great religious and educational institutions of the land. 
 And the reason of this is obvious. By degrading labour, slavery 
 has paralysed the mass of the white population of the South ; 
 by accumulating the wealth, the education, and the honours of 
 the country in the hands of a very few persons, it has necessarily 
 limited the number and lessened the force of the ordinary stimuli 
 to exertion, even to these few ; by vitiating the general standard 
 of excellence, it has contracted the capacities and lowered the 
 aims even of the best. In. political life, one can perceive the 
 advantage of possessing a class of intelligent and liberal men 
 who have made political science a study, and who may carry 
 out from generation to generation any given line of policy, if 
 that policy be good; but slavery has created for the South a 
 policy, the exigences of which have at length brought ruin upon 
 itself, and vast misery upon the whole land. 
 
 From the earliest period, education has been neglected at the 
 South. The sons of some of the more wealthy planters were sent 
 to England for instruction, but the number who received this 
 advantage was very small. So lightly esteemed was education, 
 as a popular privilege, that Sir William Berkeley, the Governor 
 of Virginia in 1640, said, " Thank God, there are no free-schools 
 nor printing-offices here, and I hope we shall not have any for 
 an hundred years." In the New England colonies, on the other 
 hand, popular education was one of the first objects of legislation. 
 Only eighteen years after Massachusetts was founded, Harvard 
 University was established. There were five printing-offices and 
 as many book-stores in the town of Boston alone, at a period 
 when there was not one of either in Virginia and the Carolinas. 1 
 
 It has been more and more felt in the Free States that, in a 
 country which was yearly receiving such an influx of foreigners 
 in addition to the increase of its native population, and in which 
 the franchise is almost unrestricted, the only salvation for its free 
 institutions is to provide proper religious and intellectual training 
 for all. And nobly has this conviction been acted upon, in all 
 the Free States of the Union. 
 
 Mr. Howison, the historian of Virginia, describes the upper 
 classes of that colony, about the middle of the last century, as 
 
 1 Olmsted, op. tit. ; Ludlow s " History of the United States. " 
 G2 
 
84 SLAVERY. 
 
 " an aristocracy neither of talent, nor of learning, nor of moral 
 worth, but of landed and slave interest." And of the people in 
 his own day (1848) he says, "The question might be asked, 
 Where is the literature of Virginia ? and it would not be easily 
 answered. It is a melancholy fact, that her people have never 
 been a reading people. In the mass they have shown an indif 
 ference to polite literature and education in general, which is 
 depressing to the mind that wishes to see them respectable and 
 happy. It is with pain that we are compelled to speak of the 
 horrible cloud of ignorance that rests on Virginia." He estimates 
 that of the 166,000 white youths in the State, between the ages 
 of seven and sixteen, 126,000 attended no school at all, and 
 received no education whatever. Besides these, he counts 
 449,087 slaves, and 48,852 free blacks, with few exceptions, 
 wholly uneducated. He continues, " The policy which discourages 
 further extension of knowledge among them is necessary ; but the 
 fact remains unchanged that they exist among us, a huge mass 
 of mind almost entirely unenlightened. We fear that the most 
 favourable estimate will leave in our State 683,000 rational 
 beings who are destitute of the merest rudiments of knowledge" 1 
 The total population of Virginia in 1848, was about 1,400,000. 
 
 The more intelligent portion of the planters do not neglect the 
 education of their own children ; these are taught at home, or in 
 Southern seminaries, or, more commonly, perhaps, in Northern 
 institutions. But for the education of the people, scarce anything 
 has been done by the class which possesses all the wealth, and 
 makes the laws of the Slave States. It is urged with truth that 
 there " a perfect system of common school education is almost an 
 impossibility ; " that " extensive plantations, occupied by slaves 
 only, independently of the exhausting crops they produce and 
 by which the number of barren fields is continually increased, 
 render a system of common schools impossible," by reason of the 
 sparseness and poverty of the population. 2 But not only this, 
 the vast majority of the white population seems to have little or 
 no desire for intellectual improvement. Hence Mr. Gregg, in an 
 address before the South Carolina Institute, said, " While we 
 are aware that the Northern and Eastern States of the Union find 
 
 1 Olmsted, op. tit. pp. 172, 173. 
 
 2 "An Historical Sketch of Slavery," by Mr. Cobb, of Georgia, quoted by 
 Ludlow, op. tit. p. 189. 
 
ITS EFFECTS ON EDUCATION. 85 
 
 no difficulty in educating their poor, we ourselves are ready to 
 despair of success in this matter. Even penal laws against the 
 neglect of education would fail to induce our country-people to 
 send their children to school." 1 
 
 And yet the advocates of slavery are constantly striving to 
 extend the system more and more, which will still farther con 
 tribute to the poverty and sparseness of the population, and 
 render any system of common education still more impossible. 
 
 The governors of several of the Slave States have repeatedly 
 urged the legislatures to endeavour to remedy this difficulty. 
 Governor Seabrook, of South Carolina, in 1848, reminded the 
 Legislature that " Education had been provided by the State but 
 for one class of citizens, the wealthy class. For the middle and 
 poorer classes of society it has done nothing, since no organized 
 system has been adopted for that purpose. . . . Ten years ago, 
 20,000 adults (considerably more than one-fourth of the entire 
 adult white population of the State), besides children, were unable 
 to read or write, in South Carolina." And he asks, " Has our 
 free-school system dispelled any of this ignorance ? Are there 
 no reasonable fears that the number has increased since ? " In 
 1855, Governor Adams, of the same State, urged the Legislature 
 to " make at least this effort, and if it results in nothing, if, in 
 consequence of insurmountable difficulties in our condition, no 
 improvement can be made on the present system, and the poor of 
 the land are hopelessly doomed to ignorance, poverty, and crime yon 
 will, at least, feel conscious of having done your duty, and the 
 public anxiety on the subject will be quieted." 2 
 
 In 1837, the Governor of Kentucky announced that one- 
 third of its adult white population were unable to write their 
 names. The Governor of Virginia declared, the same year, that 
 of 4,614 applicants for marriage licences, no less than 1,047 were 
 unable to sign their names. 3 The superintendent of public 
 schools in Louisiana recently recommended to the Legislature to 
 insist that " at least two out of three of the Directors of common 
 schools should be able to read and write ; " 4 and he declared that 
 in one of the parishes into which the State is divided, twelve 
 different directors had affixed their marks instead of their signa 
 tures to the certificates of school-teachers. 
 
 1 Cairnes, op. cit. p. 153. 3 Olrasted, op. cit. p. 505. 
 
 2 Helper, op. cit. p. 434. 4 Ludlow, op. cit. p. 190. 
 
86 SLAVERY. 
 
 A Southerner who had resided in Mexico, and had lived many 
 years in South Carolina, in speaking to Mr. Olmsted of the popu 
 lation of extensive communities on the banks of the Congaree, 
 in that State, said, " They are more ignorant, their superstitions 
 are more degrading, they are much less patient and industrious, 
 far less cheerful and happy, and very much more incapable of 
 being improved and elevated, than the most degraded pceons of 
 Mexico." ! 
 
 Mr. Lumpkin, of Georgia, speaks of " our poor, degraded, 
 half-fed, half-clothed, and ignorant population without Sabbath- 
 schools, or any other means of instruction, mental or moral, and 
 without any just appreciation of character." 2 
 
 Mr. Olmsted says of the white inhabitants of the vast pine- 
 forest districts of North Carolina, that "the negroes are decidedly 
 superior to the great mass of them in every intellectual and 
 moral respect." 3 
 
 So much for the education of the white population of the 
 Slave States. 
 
 The law in most or all of these States expressly prohibits the 
 education of the Slacks, whether slave or free, on the alleged 
 ground of the danger which would result to the public safety. 
 And the friends of slavery urge that to educate the slaves would 
 only make them more discontented with their lot and more un 
 happy. But, it may well be asked, who gave the right to hold 
 the mind as well as the body of the negro in slavery, and to 
 prevent the development of whatever faculties his Maker im 
 parted to him ? And, moreover, if one of the advantages of 
 slavery to the negro be, as it is pretended, to elevate and 
 christianise him, do not the very slave-laws prevent such 
 results ? 
 
 At the North, the number of black youths and children at 
 the public schools is greater in proportion than that of the 
 whites so educated at the South. In Massachusetts, one-sixth of 
 the black population, between five and twenty years of age, is 
 instructed at the public expense, and in the same schools with 
 the whites. 4 
 
 According to the census of 1850, the population of the Free 
 States was composed of 13,268,470 whites, and 196,116 blacks ; 
 
 1 Olmsted, op. cit. pp. 505, 506. Helper, op. cit. pp. 348, 349. 
 
 2 Helper, op. cit,. p. 405. * Ludlow, op. cit. p. 191. 
 
I ITS EFFECTS ON EDUCATION. 87 
 
 that of the Slave States 6,184,477 whites, 228,128 free negroes, 
 and 3,200,304 slaves. 
 
 In the Slave States, 8*37 per cent, of the adult native whites, 
 and 9-09 per cent, of the adult foreign whites, were unable to 
 read or write. In the Free States the proportions were 2 -40 per 
 cent, of the former, and 6 37 per cent, of the latter. In Virginia 
 the proportion of the ignorant population was 20 per cent. ; in 
 North Carolina, 25 per cent. 
 
 In the Free States, the number of public schools was 62,433, 
 or one for every 215 of the entire population; in the Slave 
 States, 18,507, or one for every 519 of the aggregate population. 
 The number of pupils in the Free States educated at the public 
 expense, was 2,769,901, at a cost of $6,760,335. In the Slave 
 States there were 581,801 pupils, and the expense of instruction 
 was $2,719,530. Besides the system of public schools, both 
 sections of the country have their respective seminaries, col 
 leges, universities, &c., with regard to which the same superiority 
 in every respect pertains to the Free States, as in the case of the 
 public schools. 1 
 
 Sabbath-schools are probably more numerous and more nume 
 rously attended in the United States than in any other country, and 
 constitute a very important feature of the public instruction of the 
 country. In the Free States alone, there were more than 3,000,000 
 Sunday-school pupils, instructed by more than 400,000 male and 
 female teachers. The whole system is supported by voluntary 
 contribution, the States being in no way connected with it. 
 
 Another important element in the public educational means 
 
 1 Since 1790, Congress has granted aid to all the States for educational purposes 
 to an immense extent : for Public Schools, 1,280 acres of public lands in every 
 township of 23,040 acres (80,555,555 acres), being worth at the minimum price 
 $100,694,443, but the real value in money received being much greater : for 
 Colleges and Universities, 12,080,000 acres (including 3,553,824 acres granted to 
 the State of Tennessee), worth, at the minimum Government price, $15,100,000. 
 In 1836, after full payment of the entire principal and interest of the Public 
 Debt, there remained in the Treasury of the United States a surplus of $38,000,000, 
 of which about one-half was divided amongst the States for educational purposes. 
 These Congressional grants are exclusive of the many millions expended upon the 
 National Naval and Military Schools. Besides these public donations, the indi 
 vidual States of the Union, territories, counties, cities, and towns have granted 
 in aid of education, it is estimated, no less than an additional $148,000,000, 
 within their respective jurisdictions, since 1790 making in all $282,794,443. 
 (Mr. Walker s fifth " Letter on American Finances and Resources," pp. 10, 11.) 
 
88 
 
 SLAVEEY. 
 
 provided in the Free States, consists in the various institutions 
 at which free courses of public lectures are given on numerous 
 branches of art and science ; scarce a large town in any of the 
 Free States which has not some such organization, endowed or 
 supported by voluntary contributions. These lectures are usually 
 given at night, so that they may be frequented by the indus 
 trious mechanic and artisan who is desirous of improving 
 himself. 
 
 In 1860, the number of journals, periodicals, &c. &c., published 
 in the Free States was 3,172, with a circulation of 760,034,360 
 annually ; in the Slave States, 879 publications, with an annual 
 circulation of 167,917,188 copies. 1 
 
 In 1850, in the former States, there were 14,911 public libra 
 ries, containing 3,888,234 volumes ; in the latter, 695 libraries, 
 with an aggregate of 649,577 volumes. 
 
 Of patents for useful and ingenious inventions, 4,059 were 
 issued to citizens of the North, and 625 to those of the South. 
 
 Mr. Goodrich, in his " Recollections of a Lifetime," thus sums 
 up the value of the books published and sold in the United 
 States, from 1820 to 1850, inclusive : 
 
 Designation. 
 
 1820. 
 
 1830. 
 
 1840. 
 
 1850. 
 
 Elementary books . 
 Classical .... 
 Theological . . . 
 Legal 
 
 $750,000 
 250,000 
 150,000 
 200 000 
 
 $1,000,000 
 350,000 
 250,000 
 300 000 
 
 $2,000,000 
 550,000 
 300,000 
 
 400 000 
 
 $5,000,000 
 1,000,000 
 500,000 
 
 Medical 
 
 150 000 
 
 200 000 
 
 9^0 000 
 
 
 Miscellaneous . . . 
 
 1,000,000 
 
 1,300,000 
 
 2,000,000 
 
 4,400,000 
 
 Total . . . 
 
 $2,500,000 
 
 $3,400,000 
 
 $5,500,000 
 
 $12,000,000 
 
 In 1860, the value of the books, journals, &c., published in 
 the United States was $39,678,043, of which only $1,521,047 
 were published in the Slave States, and $778,500 in the District 
 of Columbia for the account of the Government. From the 
 statements we have given as to the condition of the Southern 
 population, their capabilities, &c., it is evident that there is but 
 small literary consumption amongst them ; most of the above 
 supply is consumed by the people of the Free States. 2 
 
 1 Mr. Walker s fifth " Letter on American Finances, &c." p. 7. 
 
 2 For statistics, see the National Almanac, 1863 ; Helper s " Impending 
 Crisis;" Mr. Ellison s "Slavery and Secession in America;" " Les Etats-Unis 
 en 1863," &c. &c. 
 
ITS EFFECTS ON EDUCATION. 89 
 
 There is another series of facts indirectly bearing on this pait 
 of our subject. Vice-President Stephens, in estimating the value 
 of the Union to the South, and in opposing secession, reminded 
 the Georgia Convention, that " The expense of the transportation 
 of the mails in the Free States was, according to the Eeport of 
 the Post-Master General, in 1860, a little more than $13,000,000 
 while the receipts from those States by the Post-Office Depart 
 ment were $19,000,000. But in the Slave States the expenses 
 of this department were $14,716,000, and the receipts only 
 $8,001,026, leaving a deficit of $6,714,974 to be supplied by the 
 North for our accommodation, and without which assistance we 
 must have been cut off from this most essential branch of go 
 vernment." For the first time, perhaps, in the history of the 
 United States, the revenues of the Post-Office Department have 
 been greater than its expenses and this in consequence of the 
 secession of most of the Slave States. 
 
 The South has never had a literature of its own, nor the 
 means of establishing or of conducting any literary enterprise. 
 At a Convention of Delegates from the Slave States, held a few 
 years ago at Savannah, it was a subject of lamentation that " the 
 South had no literature of her own to defend her principles and 
 her rights." One of the delegates stated that the reason of this 
 was that " the publishers at the South could not support the ex 
 penditures necessary for the prosecution of any literary under 
 taking." The same gentleman also assured the Convention that 
 the two principal Southern periodicals the Southern Literary 
 Messenger, and the Southern Quarterly Revieiv, the latter edited by 
 Mr. De Bow, were "literally in danger of being abandoned for 
 want of funds." But the South seems to be destitute of the 
 simplest appliances used in book publishing. Thus, a patriotic 
 Charlestonian. desirous of founding a Southern literature, began 
 with the rudiments of knowledge ; he prepared a series of books 
 for children, which were carefully expurgated of all taint of 
 abolitionism ; nevertheless, he was obliged to have them printed, 
 stitched and bound at the North. Many of the Southern States, 
 also, have had their codes of laws, and the Annual Reports of 
 their Legislatures, printed and published at the North. The 
 Southern Quarterly Review, published in New Orleans, is printed 
 and bound in New York. The census of 1850 gives the total num 
 ber of publishing houses in the Slave States at twenty-four, of 
 
90 SLAVERY. 
 
 which ten were in Maryland; there are more than three hundred 
 in the Free States. These establishments employ 750 paper-mills, 
 with 2,000 engines in constant operation, producing 270,000,000 
 pounds of paper, valued at $27,000,000, annually (1858-9). 
 Duyckinck s " Cyclopaedia of American Literature " states that, 
 of 569 American authors whose places of nativity are given, 
 eighty-seven were natives of the South, and of these most 
 were educated, and many of them became permanent residents, 
 at the North. 1 
 
 The reason of the great inferiority of the South as compared 
 with the North, in everything which relates to education and 
 general intelligence, must be quite obvious ; the Southern popu 
 lation, in consequence of slavery, is too poor and too ignorant 
 to maintain or desire a system of common schools. And, as we 
 shall show hereafter, the wealthy and educated classes of the 
 South take no interest in the welfare and improvement of the 
 poorer classes j their interests are diametrically opposite. Con 
 sequently nothing is done to supply, by legislative enactments, 
 the educational deficiencies of the people. 
 
 Moreover, it has been considered necessary, in the interests 
 of slavery, to place such restrictions upon freedom of speech, 
 freedom of thought, and freedom of the press, at the South, as 
 to prevent any real progress excepting in the extension of " the 
 institution." In most of the Slave States severe laws exist 
 against impugning the right of property in slaves, or against 
 writing, printing, publishing, or speaking, anything which is 
 calculated or intended to bring slavery into disrepute. According 
 to the Louisiana Statutes, this prohibition extends to the in 
 tention " to diminish that respect which is commanded to free 
 people of colour for the whites by law, or to destroy that line of 
 distinction which the law has established between the several 
 classes of this community." 2 And these laws are universally 
 made to have a wide range of interpretation and application, so 
 as to include all efforts to enlighten and instruct the community, 
 if by so doing slavery shall be in any way impugned. For 
 instance, Mr. Helper, a native of North Carolina, whose fore 
 fathers had been slave-holders in that State, being convinced that 
 slavery was essentially prejudicial to all the best interests of the 
 
 1 Helper, op. cit. chap. xii. 
 
 2 Judge Stroud s "Sketch of the Laws relating to Slavery," chap. v. 
 
ITS EFFECTS ON EDUCATION. 91 
 
 State and its citizens, wrote a book which none can read without 
 being convinced by the author s arguments ; the book contains 
 not a single word addressed to the slaves, nor a word calculated 
 to excite an insurrection, unless it be 011 the part of the millions 
 of poor non-slaveholding whites, whom Mr. Helper proves to be 
 kept in their ignorant and degraded condition by slavery alone 
 to the exclusive profit of the handful of slave-proprietors. 
 Nevertheless, he was obliged to go to the North to find a 
 publisher. So violent was the hostility which this book excited 
 amongst Southerners, that a Southern Member of the House of 
 representatives, in the Congress of 1859-60, proposed the 
 following Eesolution " That no person who has endorsed and 
 recommended that book, or the compend from it, is fit to be 
 Speaker of this House." For two months the legislative business 
 of the Government was prevented, because the Southern Repre 
 sentatives, being unable to elect one of themselves, were deter 
 mined to thwart the election of any anti-slavery man; but at 
 last they were beaten. 
 
 Another instance was that of Mr. Hedrick, Professor of 
 Chemistry in the University of North Carolina, who was de 
 posed from his professorship, and compelled to leave the State, 
 simply because, being convinced that slavery was an evil, and 
 an obstacle to progress, he did not hesitate to express his views. 1 
 Instances of the same sort might be multiplied. 
 
 A religious discourse by the late Dr. Channing on West India 
 Emancipation, having been exposed for sale in Charleston, the 
 bookseller was prosecuted by the South Carolina Association, and 
 held to bail in the sum of $1,000. ^he trustees of a college 
 in Alabama, a few years ago, found that Dr. Wayland s book on 
 " Moral Science" " contains abolition doctrine of the deepest dye," 
 and they therefore denounced the said book and forbad its 
 farther use in the institution. 2 De Bow s Eeview, in one of its 
 numbers published a few years since, condemns " Wayland s 
 * Moral Science, and the abolition geographies, readers, and 
 histories, overrunning, as they do, with all sorts of slanders, 
 caricatures, and bloodthirsty sentiments. They seek to array our 
 children, by false ideas, against the established ordinance of God ; 
 and they sometimes take effect" None of these books attempt in 
 
 1 Helper, op. cit. 
 ; 2 Mr. Sranner s " Speech, on the Barbarism of Slavery," p. 46. 
 
92 SLAVERY. 
 
 the least to incite the slaves or the free negroes against the 
 whites, any more than the avowed abolition publications. But 
 it is truth and light which the South has feared to let in upon 
 its white population. 1 
 
 No traveller has visited the Slave States, for years past, who 
 has not been struck with the watchful espionage exercised for 
 this object. Mr. Stirling, a Scotsman, wrote, in 1857, " In 
 politics there is no toleration at the South ; " and again, " There 
 is a terrorism at work in the Southern States, which effectually 
 keeps down every open expression of dissent from the prevailing 
 orthodox creed of slavery." 2 Charles Mackay, the New York 
 Correspondent of the London Times, wrote, in 1859, " The 
 traveller from New England and other Free States no sooner 
 penetrates into the slave-land, than he sees all around him the 
 proofs that slavery is omnipresent. Thought is not free. One 
 may talk of the dissolution of the Union as desirable and 
 probable ; one may abuse the President and the ministers, speak 
 ill of Congress and its individual members ; one may be profane 
 or immoral in speech ; but one must not say a word against the 
 sanctity of the peculiar institution. " 
 
 But disgraceful as this system of repression is, the reason for 
 its maintenance is even more so. We have already quoted it 
 as given by Mr. Calhoun s journal, 4 it is to prevent the con 
 sciences of the slave-holders themselves from being disturbed. 
 In the face of the immense social and political influence pos 
 sessed and unscrupulously exerted by the slave-owners, not only 
 to extend slavery, but also to crush any attempt at enfranchise 
 ment of the whites and blacks at home, all hope of change for 
 the better seemed cut off. Mr. Bright well said, " There seemed 
 no way short of a miracle more stupendous than any recorded 
 in Holy Writ, which would in our time, or in a century, have 
 brought about the abolition of slavery in America, but the 
 suicide which the South has committed, and the war it is now 
 waging." 
 
 We see thus reduced to their proper value the assertions of 
 those, including the Foreign Secretary of England, who pretend 
 
 1 Olmsted s "Journeys and Explorations in the Cotton Kingdom," vol. ii. p. 358. 
 
 2 " Letters from the Slave States," pp. 80, 200. 
 
 3 "Life and Liberty in America," vol. ii. p. 38. 
 
 4 Ante, p. 52 
 
ITS EFFECTS ON KELIGION. 93 
 
 that the restoration of the Union would overthrow the liberty 
 of speech and of the Press, in the Slave States. For thirty 
 years there has been no such liberty at the South, and there 
 never can be under slavery. 
 
 Let us now examine into the state of KELIGION at the South. 
 
 In the United States, neither the Government of the Union, 
 nor the separate State Governments, are concerned in the 
 support of religion ; everything which relates to this important 
 interest is left to the people. And it has not suffered in their 
 hands. We may judge of the comparative estimate in which 
 this matter is held in the two sections of the country, by the 
 liberality with which the various religious institutions and 
 establishments are upheld by the people of each. 
 
 The value of the religious edifices in the State of New York 
 alone, in 1850, was $21,539,561 ; in the whole of the Slave 
 States combined of $21,674,581, i.e. only $135,020 more ; in all 
 the Free States combined the value was $67,773,477. For the 
 printing and circulating of the Bible, the inhabitants of the 
 State of New York contributed $269,447 ; those of the Slave 
 States combined $163,390, although the white population of the 
 latter was more than twice as numerous as of the former. The 
 people of the Free States gave to the funds of the Tract Society 
 $129,590, of the Slave States $39,103. To the various Mis 
 sionary Societies the people of the Free States contributed 
 $668,123, those of the Slave States $6,924. The Domestic 
 Missionary Society received from the Free States $197,630, from 
 the Slave States the miserable pittance of $270, although the 
 products of their agricultural labour alone were valued at more 
 than $460,000,000 for that year. 1 
 
 The following extract from the Journal of a colporteur, 
 employed to visit the poor people of South Carolina, shows 
 the condition in which he found them, as to religious know 
 ledge : "I visited sixty families, numbering 221 souls over ten 
 years of age. Of these only twenty-three could read, and 
 seventeen write. Forty-one families were destitute of the 
 Bible. Average of their attendance at Church, once in seven 
 years. Several persons between thirty-five and forty years of 
 
 1 Helper, op. cit. pp. 340, 341. 
 
94 SLAVERY. 
 
 age had heard but one or two sermons in all their lives. Some 
 grown-up youths had never heard a sermon or a prayer until 
 my visit, and did not know of the Saviour. Boys and girls, 
 from ten to fifteen years old did not know who made them. All 
 the members of one family rushed away to the house of a 
 neighbour when I knelt to pray, begging him to tell them what 
 I meant ; others fell on their faces to pray, instead of kneeling." l 
 
 Now, when it is remembered that South Carolina is one of the 
 oldest of the Slave States, that the planters who control its 
 legislation are the most intelligent and educated of their class, 
 we shall not err, probably, in considering that the religious 
 condition of the white population of that State is a fair sample 
 of that of the other Slave States. The value of the real 
 estate and personal property in South Carolina, in 1850, was 
 $288,257,694 ; its cotton-crop alone was valued at $9,628,832. 
 And yet not a cent was given in that State for the cause of 
 Domestic Missions, in 1850, with its population in such utter 
 destitution of the very means which those missions are intended 
 to supply. In fact it is the Southern Aid Society, of New York, 
 which, in connexion with the Domestic Mission Societies of the 
 Northern States, provides, so far as possible, for the necessities 
 of the Southern population. 
 
 If the whites of the Slave States be thus destitute of religious 
 knowledge and instruction, what must necessarily be the condi 
 tion of the Slaves, from whom the law, to a great extent, excludes 
 all possibility of progress in this matter ? In most or all of the 
 Slave States, assemblies of the slaves for religious worship or 
 instruction are prohibited between sunset and sunrise, i.e. at 
 those hours when, their work in the field being finished, they 
 would have time for assembling themselves together. At 110 
 time can the negroes meet excepting in the presence of one or 
 more of the white population. Free negroes are not allowed to 
 preach to slaves, and the latter distrust white preachers. 2 
 
 1 Olmsted s "Seaboard Slave States," p. 510, quoted from Do Bow s Southern 
 Quarterly Rcvieiv, vol. xviii. p. 790. 
 
 2 Mr. Olmsted ("Journeys, &c." vol. ii. p. 227) says that this distrust of the 
 white clergyman, attributed to the slaves, has been generally admitted by all the 
 clergymen at the South with whom he had conversed. He says, " A clergyman 
 of the Episcopal Church, of very frank and engaging manners, said in my 
 presence that he had been striving for seven years to gain the confidence of the 
 small number of Africans belonging to his congregation, and with extreme 
 
ITS EFFECTS ON KELIGION. 95 
 
 In South Carolina the Methodist Conference selected a pru 
 dent and discreet person for the express purpose of teaching the 
 slaves. It was his intention, distinctly avowed, to confine him 
 self to verbal instruction. Whereupon a formal remonstrance, 
 signed by more than three hundred and fifty of the leading 
 planters and citizens, was presented to him, as follows : " Verbal 
 instruction will increase the desire of the black population to 
 
 learn Open the missionary sluice, and the current will 
 
 swell in its gradual onward advance. We thus expect a pro 
 gressive system of improvement will be introduced, or will follow 
 from the nature and force of circumstances, which, if not 
 checked (though it may be shrouded in sophistry, and disguised), 
 will ultimately revolutionize our social institutions! The Mis 
 sionary, of course, withdrew from the field, and the local news 
 paper, the Grenville Mountaineer, stated that " the great body of 
 the people were evidently opposed to the religious instruction of 
 their slaves, even if it were given only orally." * 
 
 The general rule unquestionably is that religious instruction 
 of the slaves by whites is discouraged. There are, of course, 
 exceptions. Thus, Bishop Polk, of Louisiana, himself the owner 
 of four hundred negroes, and at present a Major-general in the 
 Confederate army, is careful that his slaves shall receive instruc 
 tion in religious matters, and that all the rites and ceremonies of 
 the Episcopal Church shall be imparted to them at proper times. 
 A still more striking instance of liberality and Christian duty, in 
 this respect, was exhibited by the planters of Liberty County, 
 Georgia, where a Presbyterian clergyman had been employed in 
 
 humility he had been lately forced to acknowledge that all his apparent success 
 had been most delusive. When asked how he accounted for this, he at once 
 ascribed it to the negro s habitual distrust of the white race ; and, in discussing 
 the causes of this distrust, he asked how, if he pretended to believe that the 
 Bible is the Word of God, addressed equally to all the human race, he could explain 
 to a negro s satisfaction why he should fear to put it directly into the negro s 
 hands, and instruct him to read it and judge for himself of his duty ? A planter 
 present, a member of this clergyman s church, immediately observed that these 
 were dangerous views, and advised him to be cautious in the expression of them. 
 The laws of the country, said he, forbade the education of negroes, and the 
 Church was, and, he trusted, always would remain, the buhvark of the laws. The 
 clergyman replied that he had no design to break the laws ; but he must say that 
 he considered the law which withheld the Bible from the negro unnecessary and 
 papistical in character. " 
 
 1 Olmsted s "Journeys, &c. " vol. ii. p. 214. 
 
96 SLAVERY. 
 
 the religious instruction of the slaves, at the expense of their 
 owners. After labouring for thirteen years, with a zeal and 
 judgment which had made him famous, he was called to a pro 
 fessorship of Theology in the University of South Carolina. On 
 retiring from his missionary labours he addressed a valedictory 
 to his late employers on the subject of his recent duties. In 
 this he enumerated some of the chief difficulties which he had 
 had to encounter. These were : 1st, The fact that the slaves 
 are the property of their owners. He says, " They are sought 
 after and desired as property, and when possessed must be so 
 taken care of and managed as to be made profitable. . . . 
 Under the influence of the powerful feeling of self-interest, there 
 is a tendency to view and treat them as instruments of labour, 
 as a means of wealth, and to forget, or pass over lightly, the fact 
 that they are what they are, under the eye and government of 
 God. There is a tendency to rest satisfied with very small and 
 miserable efforts for their moral improvement, and to give one s- 
 self but little trouble to correct immoralities and reform wicked 
 practices and habits, should they do their work quietly and 
 profitably, and enjoy health, and go on to multiply and increase 
 upon the earth." " And the slaves," he continues, " feeling 
 and knowing that their masters regard and treat them as their 
 money, as property only, are themselves inclined to lose sight of 
 their better character and higher interests ; and in their ignorance 
 and depravity to estimate themselves, and religion, and virtue, 
 no higher than their owners do." Again, he says, " One of the 
 chief causes of the immorality of negroes arises from the indif 
 ference both of themselves and their owners to family relations. 
 If family relations are not preserved and protected we 
 cannot look for any considerable degree of moral and religious 
 improvement." He finds, also, that the masters overlook too 
 much the habits of thieving practised by the negroes amongst 
 themselves. " While some discipline their people for every act 
 of theft committed against their own interests, they have no care 
 whatever for any amount of pilfering and stealing the people 
 carry on among themselves." He animadverts likewise upon 
 the habits of intemperance which prevail amongst the whites as 
 setting an example to the negroes : " Whatever toleration masters 
 use towards ardent spirits in others, of their own class, they are 
 generally inclined to show none towards their servants ; and in 
 
FTS EFFECTS ON RELIGION. 97 
 
 effecting this reformation masters and mistresses should set the 
 example." 1 
 
 The general conviction of those who have the best opportunity 
 of judging is that, with a great deal of animal feeling, which 
 assumes the form of religious ecstasy, the slaves are superstitious 
 and ignorant of religious truths to an extraordinary degree. The 
 Rev. C. C. Jones, of Georgia, says that he has " often heard it 
 remarked by men, whose office and standing in the Churches 
 afford them abundant opportunities of observation, that the more 
 they have seen of black members of the Church the less confi 
 dence they have been able to place in their religious profes 
 sions." 2 
 
 Mr. Olmsted gives an interesting account of his visit to "the 
 most profitable estate" lie saw. It was situated on a tributary 
 of the Mississippi. The slaves upon it formed about one-twen 
 tieth of the whole population of the county, in which the blacks 
 considerably outnumber the whites. They were well cared for 
 materially, and the managers and overseers seemed to be remark 
 ably intelligent and well chosen. 
 
 "Being with the proprietor and manager together," writes 
 Mr. Olmsted, "I asked about the religious condition of the 
 slaves. There were preachers on the estate, and they had 
 some religious observances on Sundays, but the preachers were 
 said to be the worst characters among them, and, the gentlemen 
 thought, only made their religion a cloak for especial depravity. 
 They were, at all events, the most deceitful and dishonest slaves 
 on the plantations, and oftenest required punishment. The 
 negroes of all denominations, and even those who ordinarily 
 made no religious pretensions, would join together in exciting 
 religious observances. They did not like to have white men 
 preach on the estate, and in future they did not intend to 
 permit them. It excited the negroes so much as to greatly 
 interfere with the subordination and order which were necessary 
 to obtain the profitable use of their labour. They would be 
 singing and dancing every night in their cabins till dawn of 
 day, and utterly unfitted themselves for work." 3 Thus, between 
 
 Olmsted s "Journeys, &c." vol. ii. pp. 215219. 
 
 Ibid. p. 225. 
 
 Ibid. pp. 193212. 
 
 H 
 
98 SLAVERY. 
 
 the two, the negroes had but little chance of receiving any 
 proper religious training ; the black preachers were " the most 
 deceitful and dishonest slaves on the plantation," and white 
 preachers were not to be tolerated longer. 
 
 When the special correspondent of the Times visited the 
 South, 1 he was shown over one of the largest sugar plantations 
 in Louisiana, belonging to an Englishman. He saw the young 
 negroes, and asked one of them, " Do you know how to read or 
 write? He evidently did not understand the question. Do 
 you go to church or chapel? A dubious shake of the head. 
 Did you ever hear of the Saviour? At this moment the over 
 seer interposed, saying, I think we had better go on, the sun is 
 getting hot; and so we rode on gently through the little ones, 
 and when we had got some distance off, the overseer resumed, 
 rather apologetically, We do not think it right to put these 
 things into their heads so young, it only disturbs their minds and 
 leads them astray. Now, in this one quarter," continues the 
 narrator, " there were no less than eighty children, some twelve 
 and some even fourteen years old. No education, no God ! their 
 whole life food and play, to strengthen their muscles and fit 
 them for the work of a slave. And when they die ? I asked of 
 him. Well, said he, they are buried in that field yonder, and 
 some of them have a sort of prayers said over them, I believe. " 
 
 In view of such facts as we have quoted, and which might be 
 multiplied ad libitum, is it not a miserable pretence that negro 
 slavery in the United States has been and is "a Providential 
 mode of Christianizing the African?" Even the wretched 
 attempts to accomplish this result, which might have been made 
 a splendid achievement of Christian love, have been so much 
 debased by gross selfishness, as to degrade their authors, for the 
 most part. Thus, for example, Bishop Meade, of Virginia, in a 
 sermon prepared expressly to be read to the slaves, after solemnly 
 assuring them that their very bodies are not their own, but 
 their masters , thus exhorts them : " Pray do not think I wish to 
 deceive you, when I tell you that your masters and mistresses 
 are God s overseers, and that, if you are faulty towards them, God 
 Himself will punish you severely for it in the next world, unless 
 you repent of it, and strive to make amends for it, by your 
 
 1 Russell s " Diary, North and South," vol. i. p. 397. 
 
ITS EFFECTS ON RELIGION. 99 
 
 faithfulness and diligence for the time to come, for God Himself 
 hath declared the same," &c. &C. 1 
 
 Can anything be more revolting than to hear a Christian 
 Bishop preaching that a man s body is not his own, but the 
 absolute property of another, and comparing the Almighty to a 
 Southern slave-holder ? Can anything more completely establish 
 the utter corruption and immoral selfishness of slavery, than this 
 solemn degradation of God Himself to the level of its require 
 ments and policy? 
 
 No doubt there are masters and mistresses who would be glad 
 to do their duty to their slaves, in the matter of religious instruc 
 tion. But the difficulties are too great to be overcome, unless 
 by a combined and determined co-operation of the whole slave- 
 holding population ; and such is manifestly out of the question. 
 The wives and daughters of many of the planters do, undoubtedly, 
 devote considerable time to the moral and religious training of 
 their household servants ; women are " ministering angels " at 
 the South, as they are elsewhere. But for the training of the 
 plantation slaves, and even of the mass of the poor non-slave- 
 holding whites, almost nothing is done, or is likely to be done. 
 Something more than an angel is needed to roll away the great 
 curse which shuts up the South as a tomb, against the spiritual 
 resurrection of some six or seven millions of human beings, for 
 whom, as yet, Christ hath risen in vain. 
 
 Now, this matter of the moral and intellectual training of the 
 slaves is not a mere speculative question in morals or theology. 
 It has a direct and most momentous bearing on the condition of 
 Southern society. 
 
 As to the depravation of morals caused by slavery, we have 
 quoted abundant testimony to show what was the prevalent 
 opinion of the early planters. That this effect should have gone 
 on increasing with the increase of slavery, was to have been 
 apprehended. Southerners themselves, in their eagerness to 
 defend their favourite institution, sometimes pretend that its 
 effect is the reverse of injurious on the morals of the white 
 population at the present day. For example, Chancellor Harper, 
 in addressing the Society for the Advancement of Learning, of 
 South Carolina, says, " The tendency of slavery is to elevate the 
 female character, as well as that of the other sex, and for similar 
 
 1 Olmsted s "Seaboard Slave States," pp. 118, 119. 
 H2 
 
100 SLAVERY. 
 
 reasons. It would, indeed, be intolerable if, when one class of 
 society is necessarily degraded, no compensation were made by the 
 superior elevation and purity of the other." l 
 
 We submit, in opposition to Chancellor Harper, that it is 
 primd facie improbable that, in a community in which con 
 siderably more than one-half of the aggregate population belongs 
 to the class which is " necessarily degraded in respect of moral and 
 intellectual cultivation," as is the case in South Carolina, the 
 remainder should thereby be elevated. The tendency of the 
 institution is much more likely to be degrading than elevating 
 to the character of the whites ; such was universally admitted to 
 be its tendency, before pecuniary interest had come so completely 
 to pervert the judgment and blind the moral perceptions of 
 Southerners, as it has since. Some acknowledge this to be the 
 result, even now. Thus The Southern Cultivator, June, 1855, 
 says, " Could we in all cases trace effects to their real causes, 
 we doubt not but that many young men and women, of respect 
 able parentage and bright prospects, who have made shipwreck 
 of their characters, have been led to take the fatal step by having 
 been exposed, in their early years, to the indelicate and lascivious 
 manners and conversation of their fathers negroes." 2 
 
 The following acknowledgment is from a lady of Virginia : 
 " This is one of the great evils hanging over the Slave States, 
 destroying the domestic happiness and the peace of thousands. 
 It is expressed in the single word amalgamation. It is not con 
 fined to the lower orders of the white population. It pervades 
 the whole Society. Those who indulge in it are to be found 
 amongst all ranks, occupations and professions. ... I cannot 
 use too strong language in reference to this subject, for I know 
 it will meet with a heart-felt response from every Southern 
 woman." 3 
 
 Now, admitting that at the North society is far from being 
 as virtuous and enlightened as it should be, it is unquestionably 
 vastly more so than at the South. This inferiority of the latter 
 can be traced directly and indirectly to slavery, and to no other 
 cause. 
 
 1 Olmsted, "Journeys, &c." vol. i. p. 222. 
 
 2 Ibid. 
 
 3 " Seaboard Slave States," p. 601. 
 
THE MATERIAL CO^ITION OF -TKE SOUTH. ; 101 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE MATEKIAL CONDITION AND PROGRESS OF THE NORTH 
 AND SOUTH COMPARED. 
 
 EXAMINED from this point of view, we shall find that slavery 
 has occasioned the same marked contrast between the two sec 
 tions of the United States as we have shown it to have produced 
 in other respects. 
 
 It is important to bear in mind that the two systems of free- 
 labour and slave-labour began their career at the same time in 
 the United States. The first slaves imported into the colonies 
 were landed on the James liiver, in Virginia, in 1620, from a 
 Dutch ship. In the same year, " the Pilgrim Fathers " of New 
 England landed on the shores of Massachusetts Bay. We may 
 apply to this notable coincidence the remark made by Louis 
 XVIII. to a courtier who informed him that the Duke of Wel 
 lington was born the same year as Napoleon : " Providence 
 owed us such a compensation." 
 
 The area of the nine Free States enumerated in the census of 
 1790 the first census taken was 169,668 square miles ; of the 
 eight slave-holding States, 300,580 square miles. The population 
 of the former at that time was 1,968,455, of the latter, 1,961,372. 
 But, in 1860, the former had 10,594,168, and the latter 7,414,684, 
 inhabitants ; in other words, those Free States have increased 
 their population from 11*60 per square mile, in 1790, to 6244 
 in 1860 ; while the Slave States referred to have increased from 
 6-52 to 24 66 per square mile, during the same period. No cause, 
 other than slavery, directly and indirectly, can explain this dif 
 ference in progress in favour of the Free States. For in climate, 
 in salubrity, in abundance of natural resources, the Slave-holding 
 States were far superior to the others. And the shore line, 
 including bays, sounds, rivers, and islands, to the head of tide- 
 
102 SLAVERY. 
 
 water, was for the latter group of States only 4,480 miles against 
 6,560 miles for the former. 1 
 
 It is very generally stated that the Southern States are so 
 unhealthy to white labourers that negroes are necessary to culti 
 vate the soil. This is a very grievous mis-statement. It is in 
 opposition to the assertions of the best Southern authorities, and 
 is contrary to the testimony of the tables of mortality for the 
 Northern and Southern States compared. 
 
 Governor Hammond, of South Carolina, maintained that " the 
 steady heat of our Southern summers is not so prostrating as 
 the short, but frequent and sudden outbursts of heat of North 
 ern summers." Dr. Cartwright, an eminent physician of New 
 Orleans, which is supposed to be the most unhealthy city of the 
 United States, affirms that, " In New Orleans the greater part of 
 the hard labour work requiring exposure to the sun, such as 
 railway-making, street-paving, cart-driving, the digging of ditches 
 and drains, and house-building is performed by whites." And 
 he says also, that the country bordering on "the lower part of the 
 Mississippi " is exempt from miasmatic fevers, and is extremely 
 healthy." Dr. Barton of New Orleans, confirms his confrere s 
 opinion ; he thinks that the climate of the South is more favour 
 able to health and vigour than that of the North ; that the 
 diseases most common and most fatal at the South are chiefly of 
 a preventible nature. Professor Darby, who surveyed the States 
 of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, between the years 
 1805 and 1815, and who was exposed, with his command, to all 
 the accidents and privations attendant on his occupation, says 
 that they " suffered no sickness of any kind." He adds, " that 
 nine-tenths of the diseases of these warm climates may be pre 
 vented, I have no doubt whatever." 
 
 A Southern contributor to De Bow s " Eesources of the South," 
 vol. ii. p. 43, says, " The cotton-planters, deserting the rolling 
 land, are fast pouring in upon the swamp lands. Indeed, the 
 impression of the sickliness of the South generally has been 
 rapidly losing ground among the whites for some years past, and 
 health is now sought with as much confidence on the swamp 
 lands of the Yazoo and the Mississippi as among the hills and 
 plains of Carolina and Virginia." 2 
 
 1 See the third Letter of Hon. R. J. Walker, on "American Finances and 
 Resources," pp. 10, 11. London, 1863 : William Ridgway. 
 8 Helper, Olmstcd, Ellison, op. tit. 
 
THE MATEEIAL CONDITION OF THE SOUTH. 103 
 
 In 1850, the census report gives the rate of mortality in the 
 seven original Free States as 1 to 68*66 of the entire population ; 
 in the six original Slave-holding States as 1 to 78 30. Of the 
 former States, the smallest mortality was in Pennsylvania, 1 to 
 81 63; of the latter, the smallest was in Georgia, 1 to 9T93. In 
 Florida the mortality was as 1 to 93 67 of the population ; in 
 Texas, as 1 to 6979. The largest mortality in the Free States 
 was in Massachusetts, 1 to 51 23 of the population ; in the Slave- 
 holding States, in Louisiana, 1 to 42 85, not solely owing to the 
 climate, but also to the overtasking of the slaves, especially during 
 the sugar-making season. The general average mortality in all 
 the Free States was as 1 to 73 07 of the aggregate population ; in 
 all the Slave States as 1 to 71 81. In the former, the general 
 average was diminished by the extremely low rate in Wisconsin, 
 1 to 105*82 of the population of that State, and in Vermont, 1 to 
 100*13 of its inhabitants. Excluding these two, the mortality 
 was lower in the Slave-holding than in the Free States. South 
 Carolina contains more land, the cultivation of which is con 
 sidered as unfavourable to health, than any other State in the 
 Union ; and yet the average mortality in South Carolina, in 
 1860, was as 1 to 77.22 of its population, while in Massachusetts 
 the rate was as 1 to 60.31. 
 
 Now, if we bear in mind that more than half the population 
 of the Slave States are regarded less as human beings (to 
 whom life and health are as dear, and as worthy of preservation 
 and care, as to the whites) than as so much valuable property, 
 and that the number of immigrants,, in full vigour and in the 
 prime of youth, is annually very large to the Free States, and 
 very small to the others, we shall be still more struck with the 
 comparative small rate of mortality in the latter as contrasted 
 with the former. 
 
 In every one of the Southern States the whites do carry on all 
 sorts of work with as much impunity as the slaves. It is a great 
 stretch of fancy to pretend that any part of that country is un 
 inhabitable by whites. In Alabama, according to the census 
 of 1850, there were 67,742 white males, over fifteen years of 
 age, engaged in agricultural labour ; in Mississippi, 50,028 ; in 
 Georgia, 82,107 ; in Louisiana, 11,524 ; in North Carolina, 
 76,338 ; in Florida, 5,472. And there is no State at the South 
 in which there are not noii-slaveholding whites who till their 
 
104 SLAVERY. 
 
 own small farms, or work for others. In Texas the best cotton- 
 crops are produced by the German population who own no 
 slaves, and their cotton is said to be worth a cent and a half per 
 pound more than the slave-grown. * 
 
 Thus it is evident that the Slave- holding States are fully as 
 salubrious as the Free States. Consequently their climate 
 opposes 110 obstacle to white labourers, nor to free black in 
 opposition to slave-labour. They contain all the natural means 
 and aids to material prosperity navigable streams, good har 
 bours, fertile soils, a genial climate, mineral treasures, wealth- 
 yielding forests- all, excepting gold mines, in far greater pro 
 fusion than do the Free States. We shall see the comparative 
 use which each section has made of its respective advantages. 
 
 We venture to beg the special attention of our English readers 
 to this portion of our argument. One of the great inducements 
 Urged upon Englishmen in favour of the Southern rebellion is 
 that, if the South succeeds, a system of direct free-trade will be 
 opened between it and England, which will be so lucrative and 
 advantageous in every way to the latter party, as to far more 
 than counterbalance any probable diminution of traffic between 
 England and the United States. We shall prove the utter fal 
 lacy of this argument by showing the miserable condition in 
 which the Southern population is, the small range of its neces 
 sities, owing to its low grade of civilization, and its extremely 
 limited means of paying for even the necessities of its existence. 
 
 In 1860 the population of the Free States was composed of 
 19,076,439 whites, and 241,306 blacks, in all, 19,317,745. The 
 Slave-holding States contained 8,199,760 whites,, 252,916 free 
 blacks, and 3,952,702 slaves. The Free States embraced 853,953 
 square miles, 22 62 persons to the square mile; the Slave-holding 
 States 846,632 square miles, 14 65 persons to the square mile. 
 
 The States now comprising the Southern Confederacy con- 
 
 i Helper, op. cit. pp. 343 348 ; Ellison, "Slavery and Secession in America," 
 pp 181184. The unhealthy portion of the South, as compared with the North, 
 B chiefly along some parts of the coast, where fresh and salt water mingle, and 
 prodtice malaria. But, excluding these lands (on which, so far as cotton is 
 concerned, very little is grown, excepting on the sea-islands, off the coast of 
 Carolina), we have the bottom-lands along the rivers, than which none are 
 inore fertile, or, according to Southern accounts, more salubrious, and the great 
 range of upland country perfectly healthy and admirably adapted for cultivation, 
 find furnishing excellent cotton lands. 
 
THE SLAVE HOLDEKS. 105 
 
 tained, according to the census of 1860, 5,549,463 white inhabi 
 tants, 132,760 free blacks, and 3,520,116 slaves, in all 9,202,339 
 inhabitants, at an average density of 12*63 to each square mile 
 of territory. The States remaining in the Union contained, 
 according to the same census, 21,726,736 whites, 361,462 free 
 blacks, and 432,586 slaves, in all 22,520,784 persons, represent 
 ing an average population of 2316 to each square mile of 
 territory. 
 
 In addition, the United States possess of territories not yet 
 admitted as States, but administered by territorial governments 
 under the jurisdiction of Congress, 1,119,226 square miles, with 
 a population of 220,195 inhabitants. 1 
 
 Let us examine into the material condition of each class of 
 the Southern population. 
 
 1. THE SLAVE-HOLDING CLASS. 
 
 The number of slaves owned by individuals varies from one 
 to a thousand and upwards. It is stated that, in 185055, 
 taking the Slave States in general, there were 68,820 whites who 
 held each but one slave ; 105,683 from one to Jive; 80,765 from 
 five to ten; 54,595 from ten to twenty ; 29,733 from twenty to 
 fifty; 6,196 from ^y to one hundred; 1,479 from one hundred 
 to two hundred; 187 from two hundred to three hundred; 56 
 from three hundred to five hundred ; 9 from five hundred to a 
 thousand; and 2 held two thousand slaves, or more. Mr. De 
 Bow states that the whole number of actual owners of slaves 
 was only 186,551 ; of these proprietors 2,000 were counted 
 more than once, from the fact of their possessing plantations 
 and slaves in different parts of the same State, or in different 
 States ; and 158,974 persons hired slaves without actually own 
 ing them. Thus the whole number of whites employing and 
 directly profiting by slave-labour was, according to this last 
 estimate, but 3-ftf,525. It has been a mere handful of men at 
 the South which has governed the United States for nearly a 
 
 We have taken our statistics from the National Almanac for 1863. The 
 results which we have given differ somewhat from those published by the Hon. 
 R. J. Walker in his " Letters on American Finances and Resources ; " but as we 
 have not access to his authorities, we prefer adhering to our own calculations, 
 wlik-h anyone can verify. 
 
106 SLAVERY. 
 
 century, and which has now plunged the country into a civil 
 war because the sceptre was departing from its grasp. l 
 
 In 1850, the white population of the Slave States was 
 6,184,477, of which 3-^5 525 held the slaves. Adopting this as 
 about the proportion for 1860, we shall have of the white popu 
 lation at that time (8,199,760), 455,466 holding slaves, and of 
 the white population of the Confederate States (5,549,463), 
 324,421 slave-holders. During the three years of war which 
 have occurred since, the number has not probably increased 
 very much. Thus, in those States the wealth, (for there slaves 
 are the indication and the standard of wealth, is all concentred 
 in the hands of a very small portion of the population ; the 
 non-slaveholders are, for the most part, poor. 
 
 The chief crop raised for sale in the Slave States is cotton. 
 The aggregate value of this staple is very great ; but it is dis 
 tributed amongst so many large and small producers, and the 
 expenses attending its production are so considerable, and so 
 large a portion of the proceeds are spent out of the cotton- 
 growing States, that these derive an astonishingly small advan 
 tage from it. 
 
 The total number of slaves employed in the cultivation of 
 cotton, in 1850, was estimated by Mr. De Bow at 1,800,000, and 
 the aggregate crop at 2,400,000 bales, making an average of 
 a bale and one-third for each slave. As a general rule, the 
 smaller the number of slaves on a plantation the less is their 
 average production of cotton. Mr. De Bow estimates that there 
 are 420,000 slaves on plantations owned by planters who work 
 fifty slaves or more each. If these produce on an average only 
 two and a half bales of cotton per head (including men, women 
 and children), it will leave an average for the small plantations of 
 seven-eighths of a bale per slave. The smaller planters are gene 
 rally found in the interior, at some distance from a market, the 
 richer planters having gradually purchased all the more advan 
 tageously situated cotton-lands. To the small producer in the 
 interior, who is obliged to pay large costs of transportation to 
 market, and very probably also the expense of cleaning and 
 packing to some wealthier neighbour who possesses the requisite 
 conveniences for this necessary work, his crop is not worth more 
 than an average of seven cents per pound, or $30 per bale. 
 
 i Helper, op. cif, pp. 117120. 
 
THE SLAVE-HOLDEES. 107 
 
 Deducting the number of those who hold slaves only as 
 domestic servants from the total number of slave-holders, more 
 than half the latter, and fully one-half of all the cotton-planters, 
 own each not more than one family of, on an average, five slaves, 
 of all ages. The ordinary total cash income of one-half of the 
 cotton-planters cannot therefore be estimated at more than $125 
 per annum, or, in years of unusual productiveness or high 
 prices, $150. With this they must purchase whatever of cloth 
 ing and other necessaries they may require for the yearly 
 consumption of their own families and their slaves, as well as 
 provide tools and materials requisite to the culture of their land, 
 pay for extra work, if needed, and for professional services, 
 defray taxes, provide education for their children, if any be 
 provided, &c., &c. Hence it is evident that at least one-half of 
 the cotton-planters must be wretchedly poor poorer than the 
 mass of day-labourers at the North. 
 
 A similar calculation will show that those planters who own, 
 on an average, two slave families, or ten slaves of all ages, can 
 scarcely produce more than $300 worth of cotton annually. 
 Mr. Olrnsted says he has seen "many a workman s lodging at 
 the North, and also in England, where there was double the 
 amount of luxury he ever saw in a cotton-planter s house, on 
 plantations worked by three slave families." 
 
 The next class of cotton-planters for whose incomes the census 
 furnishes the materials for an opinion, is that which possesses, 
 on an average, seven cabins of five slaves each, including house- 
 servants, the aged and infirm, and children. It is doubtless true 
 that many planters of this class, though by no means all, do 
 obtain handsome returns for their capital. 
 
 Planters who possess ten slave families, or more, of five slaves 
 each, " have advantages for the cultivation, cleansing, pressing, 
 shipping, and selling of their cotton crop, by the aid of which 
 they obtain large returns for their investments. The whole 
 number of slave-holders of this class, in all the Slave States, was 
 estimated by Mr. De Bow at 7,929, which comprises all the great 
 sugar, rice, tobacco, and cotton-planters ; less than 7,000, cer 
 tainly, are cotton-planters. A large majority of these live, when 
 they reside on their plantations at all, in districts of which 
 almost the only white population consists of owners and over 
 seers of the same class of plantations. The nearest other whites 
 
108 SLAVERY. 
 
 will be some sandhill vagabonds, between whom and the 
 planters intercourse is neither intimate or friendly." T 
 
 It is evident, therefore, that the vast majority of the Southern 
 cotton-planters, whose aggregate revenue is so large, have in the 
 average very little money to expend upon anything beyond the 
 merest necessities. And the wealthy, who can afford luxuries, 
 and who are possessed of refinement and education, find them 
 selves compelled to seek, beyond the Slave States, those condi 
 tions which refinement and education require for their own 
 gratification and enjoyment, and which no wealth can purchase 
 at home. 2 Moreover, from the sparseness of the Southern popu 
 lation, the character of that population, as a whole, its low grade 
 of civilization, and the very limited range of Southern industry, 
 the larger portion of the aggregate revenue of the planters is 
 necessarily expended abroad in the purchase of a thousand 
 articles for domestic and agricultural purposes, which the South 
 itself cannot furnish. Hence, notwithstanding its apparent 
 wealth, the South is poor, and the cause of that poverty is, beyond 
 dispute, Slavery. Furthermore, so long as slavery continues to 
 be the predominant basis of labour, the South must continue to 
 be poor, and hopelessly so. 
 
 It is easy to cite Southern testimonies to establish the truth 
 of these statements. 
 
 A writer in De Bow s " Industrial Kesourees," vol. ii., pp. 113, 
 114, says : " If one unacquainted with the present condition of 
 the south-west were told that the cotton-growing district alone 
 had sold the crop for $50,000,000 annually for the last twenty 
 
 1 See an interesting discussion of this question in Olmsted s "Journeys arid 
 Explorations, " vol. i. pp. 827. 
 
 2 According to the census of 1850, there were more than 600,000 natives of the 
 Slave States residing at the North, while there were less than 100,000 of natives 
 of the Free States living at the South. Mr. Gregg, of South Carolina, says that, 
 of the mercantile class alone, " we shall not have to go much further ba<;k than 
 twenty -five years to count up $25,000,000 of capital accumulated in Charleston, 
 and which has left us with its enterprising owners who have located themselves 
 principally in Northern cities. This sum would have built factories enough to 
 spin and weave every pound of cotton grown in the State, besides making rail 
 ways to intersect every portion of the up-country, giving business facilities to the 
 remotest points." (Olmsted s "Journeys and Explorations," vol. ii. p. 301.) 
 There is, perhaps, not a city or a large town in the middle Atlantic States, and 
 even in Massachusetts, in which there are not Southern families residing perma 
 nently, for comfort or for education. 
 
THE SLAVE-HOLDERS. 109 
 
 years, lie would naturally conclude that this must be the richest 
 community in the world. He might well imagine that the 
 planters all dwelt 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. But what would 
 be his surprise when told that, so far from dwelling in palaces, 
 many of these planters live in habitations of the most primitive 
 description, so badly built as to be incapable of protecting their 
 inmates from the wind and rain ; that, instead of any artistic 
 improvement, these rude dwellings are surrounded by cotton- 
 fields, or, probably, by fields exhausted, washed into gullies and 
 abandoned ; that instead of canals having been constructed, 
 even the navigable streams remain unimproved, to the great 
 injury of commerce ; that the common roads of the country are 
 scarcely passable ; that the edifices for religious and educational 
 purposes are frequently built of logs and merely roofed with 
 boards ; and that the fine arts are but little encouraged or cared- 
 for. . . How would his surprise be increased, when told that 
 instead of being misers and hoarders of money, these planters 
 are generally in want of it, and that many of them are poor and 
 bankrupt." l 
 
 A very different state of things prevails at the North. Mr. 
 Olrnsted well says, " Let a man be absent twenty years from 
 almost any part of the North, and he will be impressed on his 
 return with what are called the improvements which have been 
 made better buildings, churches, school-houses, mills, rail 
 ways, &c., &c. In New York city alone, for example, at least 
 $200,000,000 have been re-invested merely in an improved 
 housing of the people ; in labour-saving machinery, water-works 
 for the supply of the city, gas-works, &c., as much more. It is 
 not difficult to see where the profits of our manufacturers and 
 merchants are. Again, go into the country, and there is no end 
 of substantial proof of twenty years of agricultural prosperity, 
 not alone in roads, canals, bridges, dwellings, barns, and fences, 
 but in books, furniture, gardens, and in the better dress and 
 evidently higher education of the people. But where will the 
 
 1 Cairnes, " The Slave Power," pp. 92-94. 
 
110 SLAVERY. 
 
 returning traveller find the accumulated profits of the cotton- 
 crops of twenty years in the south-west ? Ask the planter for 
 them, and he will point you in reply not to dwellings, churches, 
 school-houses, libraries, mills, railways, or anything of the kind. 
 He will point to his negroes, and to almost nothing else." 1 
 
 This statement of Mr. Olmsted is corroborated in the most 
 forcible language by Mr. T. E. Cobb, of Georgia. 2 " In a slave- 
 holding State," says he, " the greatest evidence of wealth in the 
 planter is the number of his slaves. The most desirable property 
 for a remunerative income is slaves. The best property to leave 
 to his children, and from which they will part with the greatest re 
 luctance, is slaves. Hence the planter invests his surplus income 
 in slaves. The natural result is, that lands are a secondary 
 consideration. No surplus is left for their improvement. The 
 homestead is valued only so long as the adjacent lands are pro 
 fitable for cultivation. The planter himself having no local 
 attachments, his children inherit none. On the contrary, he 
 encourages in them a disposition to seek new lands. His 
 valuable property (slaves) are easily removed to fresh lands ; 
 much more easily than to bring fertilizing materials to the old. 
 The result is that they, as a class, are never settled. Such a 
 population is almost nomadic. It is useless to seek to excite 
 patriotic emotions in behalf of the land of birth, when self- 
 interest speaks so loudly. On the other hand, where no slavery 
 exists, and the planter s surplus cannot be invested in labourers, 
 it is appropriated to the improvement or extension of his farm, 
 the beautifying of the homestead," &c., &c. 
 
 This wretched system of exhausting land and then leaving it, 
 alluded to by Mr. Cobb, is prevalent all over the South. We 
 are told in De Bow s " Eesources of the South," 3 that " The native 
 soil of middle Georgia is a rich argillaceous loam, resting on a 
 firm clay foundation. In some of the richer counties nearly all 
 the land has been cleared and appropriated to tillage, a large 
 maximum of which has been worn out, leaving a desolate pic 
 ture for the traveller to behold, decaying tenements, red, old 
 hills stripped of their native growth and virgin soil, and washed 
 into deep gullies, with here and there patches of Bermuda peas 
 
 1 "Journeys and Explorations," vol. i. p. 25. 
 
 2 Quoted in Ludlow s " History of the United States," p. 113. 
 
 3 Quoted by Mr. Olmsted, "Seaboard Slave States," p. 533. 
 
I THE SLAVE-HOLDERS. Ill 
 
 and stunted pines struggling for subsistence on what was once 
 one of the richest soils in America/ 
 
 The Business Committee of the South Carolina State Agri 
 cultural Society reported in 1855, "Our old fields are enlarging, 
 our homesteads have been decreasing fearfully in number. . . We 
 are not only losing some of our most energetic and useful 
 citizens to supply the bone and sinew of other States, but we 
 are also losing our slave population, which is the true wealth of the 
 State ; our stocks of hogs, horses, mules, and cattle are dimin 
 ishing in size and decreasing in number, and our purses are 
 strained for the last cent to supply their places from the north 
 western States." * 
 
 Alabama was admitted into the Union in 1819 ; in 1855, the 
 Hon. C. C. Clay makes the following remarkable statements 
 concerning its agricultural and material condition : " I can show 
 you with sorrow 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 farther west and south in 
 search of other virgin lands, which they will despoil in like 
 manner. Our wealthier planters, with greater means and no 
 more skill, 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. 
 
 " Of the $20,000,000 annually realised from the cotton-crop 
 of Alabama, nearly all not expended in supporting the producers 
 is re-invested in land and negroes. Thus, the white population 
 has decreased, and the slave population has increased, almost 
 pari passu, in several counties of our state. In 1825, Madison 
 county cast about 3,000 votes, now she cannot give more than 
 
 1 Olmsted, "Journeys, &c." vol. ii. p. 292. Mr. Gregg, of Charleston, remarking 
 upon this loss to which South Carolina has been subjected, from the emigration 
 of her citizens, says, "I think it would be within bounds to assume that the 
 planting capital withdrawn from the State during the last twenty-live years 
 would, if it had been judiciously applied, have drained every acre of swamp-land 
 in South Carolina, besides resuscitating the old, worn-out land, and doubling the 
 crops thus more than quadrupling the productive agriculture of the State." 
 (Ibid. 299.) 
 
112 SLAVERY. 
 
 2,300. In traversing that county, one will discover numerous 
 farm-houses, once the abode of industrious and intelligent free 
 men, now occupied by slaves, or tenantless, deserted, and dilapi 
 dated. He will observe fields, once fertile, now unfenced, 
 abandoned, and covered with weeds. He will see the moss 
 growing on the mouldering walls of once thriving villages ; and 
 will find that one only master grasps the whole domain which 
 once furnished happy homes for a dozen white families. Indeed, 
 a country in its infancy, where fifty years ago scarce a forest-tree 
 had been felled, is already exhibiting the painful signs of senility 
 and decay, so 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." 1 
 
 A Convention for the organization of the Virginia State Agri 
 cultural Society, in 1852, adopted an address which acknow 
 ledged the striking retrogression of the State. This paper stated 
 amongst other things : " Whilst our population has increased 
 during the last ten years in the ratio of 11 -66 per cent., that of 
 New York has increased 27 52 per cent., and that of Massa 
 chusetts at the still higher and more startling ratio of 34-81 per 
 cent. With a wide-spread domain, a kindly soil, a climate 
 whose sun radiates fertility, and whose very dews distil abun 
 dance, we find our inheritance so wasted, that the eye aches to be 
 hold the prospect" 2 
 
 The same sad picture is drawn of Texas, the most recent 
 and, perhaps, naturally, the richest in soils of the Slave States. 
 Mr. Olmsted (himself a farmer) says, " After two hundred years 
 occupation of similar soils by a community of free labourers, 
 I have seen no such evidences of waste as I have seen in Texas 
 after ten years of slavery. Waste of soil and injudicious appli 
 cation of labour are common in the agriculture of the North, 
 but nowhere at the North is the land, with what is attached to 
 it, less promising, and less adapted to be the residence of a 
 refined and civilized people now than it was before the opera- 
 
 1 Olmsted, "Journeys, &c." pp. 567577. 
 
 2 Ibid. pp. 166 170. This Report was once adopted, then re-considered, and 
 again adopted ; a second time re-considered, and finally rejected, on the ground 
 that "there were admissions in it which would feed the fanaticism of the Aboli 
 tionists." Mr. Olmsted quotes almost the whole of this Report in the Appen< v 
 to his "Journeys and Explorations," vol. ii. pp. 367 369. 
 
THE SLAVE-HOLDERS. 113 
 
 tions commenced which have been attended with the alleged 
 waste." Again, he says, " in Texas, agriculture, with some ex 
 ceptions among the Germans, is almost as rude and wasteful as 
 it is possible to be. ... With cotton as the only export, and 
 slaves as the only labourers, no better system will ever be 
 adopted. The growth of wealth is in almost nothing else than 
 slaves, and each crop must go to be capitalized in more 
 labourers. The demand upon the soil being thus incessant, 
 immediate return in quantity, without reference to duration, 
 becomes the measure of success, and must remain so as long as 
 virgin soils are at hand." 
 
 In short, it is a matter of notoriety amongst intelligent 
 Southerners, that their country is becoming more and more im 
 poverished. Mr. De Bow says, " Examples may be found in our 
 own country, of States having become poorer in consequence of 
 a steady perseverance in an unwise application of their labour. 
 Such is the case in all the A tlantic States south of the Potomac, 
 as I think will be granted by every intelligent and candid in 
 dividual who is acquainted with the country. I think it will 
 be admitted that these States are even 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 ski]l ; 
 but the great source of all wealth in an agricultural country, the 
 soil, has been greatly deteriorated and exhausted." l 
 
 Not only are intelligent Southerners aware of the growing 
 deterioration of their land under slave-labour, but the superiority 
 of free-labour has been often exhibited, under circumstances 
 which have rendered doubt impossible. Thus, to give one 
 example out of many : in Fairfax County, Virginia, the result of 
 the comparison is given in the following words, from the Agri 
 cultural Report of the Commissioner to the Patent Office in 
 Washington. " In appearance, the country is so changed that 
 a traveller who passed over it ten years ago would not now 
 recognise it. Thousands and thousands of acres, which had been 
 cultivated in tobacco by the former proprietors, and would not pay 
 the cost, were abandoned as worthless, and became covered with 
 a wilderness of pines. These lands have been purchased by? 
 Northern emigrants, the large tracts have been divided and 
 cleared of pines, and neat farm-houses and barns,, with smiling 
 
 1 Cairnes, op. cit. p. 85, 
 I 
 
114 SLAVERY. 
 
 fields of grain and grass, in the season, salute the delighted gaze 
 of the beholder. Ten years ago it was a mooted question 
 whether Fairfax lands could be made productive, and, if so, 
 would they pay the cost. This problem has been satisfactorily 
 solved, and, in consequence of the altered state of things, school- 
 houses and churches have doubled in number." 1 
 
 As to the amount and kind of success which the South has 
 achieved under the regime of slavery, during the two centuries 
 and-a-half of its career, we may sum it up as follows : It has 
 rapidly and effectually exhausted its naturally rich soil of all 
 those elements which are most easily extracted from it, and it 
 has almost completely neglected all the other natural resources 
 of the country. Moreover, by proscribing manufactures and 
 commerce; by limiting agricultural operations within narrow 
 bounds, and to an ignorant and degraded class of labourers ; by 
 preventing white immigration ; by rendering the formation of 
 an intelligent, industrious, and thriving middle-class impossible ; 
 by virtually interdicting any system of common-school educa 
 tion ; by these and similar means, slavery has succeeded in 
 enriching a very small number of slave-holders, at the expense 
 of the civilization and prosperity of the millions of the white 
 inhabitants of the South, and in limiting, so far as possible, by 
 legislation and neglect, the advantages which might have accrued 
 to the slaves from their association with the dominant race. 
 
 In some districts there are, as we have seen, considerable 
 numbers of small farmers, who possess no slaves, and who carry 
 on comparatively limited agricultural operations with their 
 own hands, aided sometimes by hired white labour. But these 
 farmers are generally looked upon with dislike and suspicion 
 by the slave-holders, as well as by the great masses of the poor 
 whites. They cannot compete with the wealthier planters, and 
 are, consequently, becoming more and more poor. Their small 
 farms are continually being purchased by their richer neigh 
 bours, and they themselves go elsewhere to commence upon 
 fresh soils the process of waste and ruin. 
 
 As to the planters and their families, we find the following, 
 amongst the statements made concerning their habits and mode 
 of living, which will interest those who think that free-trade 
 with them will conduce much to the profit of English manu- 
 
 1 Cairnes, op. cit. p. 213. 
 
THE SLAVE-HOLDERS. 115 
 
 facturers. Of course, we are not unaware that all over the 
 Slave States, and especially in the older, there are planters who 
 will compare favourably in point of intelligence, refinement, and 
 breeding with their compeers in wealth of any country. But 
 these are manifestly exceptions to the generality of their class. 
 
 Mr. Olmsted, who has visited the Slave States on several 
 occasions and who has passed, if we are not mistaken, about 
 two years therein speaks of having visited " planters, who not 
 only did not themselves enjoy, but who have never imagined, or 
 aspired to, a tithe of the comfort to which most journeymen 
 mechanics, whom I have known, are habituated gentlemen, 
 nine-tenths of whose neighbours, for a hundred miles around 
 them, live in a manner which, if witnessed at the North, w r ould 
 make them objects of compassion to the majority of our day- 
 labourers." 
 
 He says that, in his last journey of nearly three months 
 between the Mississippi and the Upper James Eiver, in Vir 
 ginia, in nine cases out of ten he was obliged to sleep in a room 
 with others, in a bed which stank, supplied with but one sheet, 
 if any ; to wash with utensils common to the whole family. He 
 found no garden, no flowers, no fruit, no tea, no cream, no sugar, 
 no bread (but corn-pone) ; no curtains to the windows ; three 
 times in four absolutely no windows ; no hay, nor straw, nor 
 oats, for his horse, &c. &c. " In nine-tenths of the houses south 
 of Virginia," says he, "in which I was obliged to spend the 
 night making all reasonable endeavours to find the best there 
 were none of these things. Most of these houses had been 
 recommended to me, by disinterested persons on the road, as 
 being better than ordinary. From the banks of the Mississippi 
 to the banks of the James, I did not see (that I remember), 
 excepting perhaps in one or two towns, a thermometer, nor a 
 copy of Shakespeare, nor a piano, nor a sheet of music, nor the 
 light of a carcel or other good centre-table or reading-lamp, 
 nor an engraving, nor copy of any kind of a work of art of the 
 slightest merit. I am not speaking of poor whites ; a large 
 majority of all these houses were the residences of slave-holders, 
 a considerable proportion of them cotton-planters." l 
 
 Again, he says, " As I think of the houses into which I have 
 had glimpses, in Virginia, it does not seem to me that men who 
 
 1 " Journeys and Explorations, " vol. ii. pp. 280 286. 
 
 i2 
 
116 SLAVERY. 
 
 are reputed to be worth $400,000 have equal advantages of 
 wealth with those who possess one quarter of that amount in 
 the Free States. Men with $40,000 live not so well here as 
 
 TT 7 
 
 men worth $10,000 at the North. The farmer who owns half-a- 
 dozen negroes, and who, I suppose, must be worth $4,000, does 
 not approach, in his possession of civilized comfort, the well- 
 to-do working-man at the North, who rents a small house, and 
 whose property consists in its furniture, his tools, skill, and 
 strength, and a few hundred dollars laid up in the Savings* 
 Bank." 1 
 
 An intelligent man, who had travelled two years in Louisiana, 
 having business with the planters, described the condition of 
 most of the new slave-holders and the small planters as being 
 " very miserable." He had sometimes found it difficult to get 
 food at their houses, even when he was in urgent need of it. 
 " The majority of the wealthy Creole planters," he said, " do 
 nothing to improve their estates, and are very apt to live beyond 
 their income. The majority of all planters, he thought, would 
 always run in debt to the extent of their credit, for the purchase 
 of negroes, whatever price might be asked for them, without 
 ever making any calculation as to the reasonable prospect of 
 their being able to pay their debts. When any one made a 
 good crop he always expected that his next would be still 
 better, and made purchases of slaves in advance upon such 
 expectations." Comparing the condition of people of property 
 in New York and Louisiana, he said, " that, with some rare 
 exceptions, farmers worth $40,000 in New York lived in greater 
 comfort and enjoyed more refined and elegant leisure than 
 planters in Louisiana worth $300,000 ; and that farmers of the 
 ordinary class in New York, who laboured with their own 
 hands, and were worth some $6,000, lived in far greater comfort 
 and in all respects more enviably than planters worth $50,000 
 in Louisiana. He might travel many days, and coll upon a 
 hundred planters, and hardly see in their houses more than one 
 newspaper, perhaps not one ; nor any books, excepting a Bible, 
 and some Government publications which had been franked to 
 them through the Post-office, and perhaps a few religious tracts, 
 or school-books." 2 
 
 1 "Journeys and Explorations," vol. i. p. 137. 
 
 2 Ibid. vol. ii. pp. 4448. 
 
THE SLAVE-HOLDERS. 117 
 
 " In our whole journey through Eastern Texas," says Mr. 
 Olmsted, 1 " we did not see one of the inhabitants look into a 
 book or a newspaper, although we spent days in houses where 
 men were lounging about the fire without occupation. . . . We 
 stopped one night at the house of a planter, now twenty years 
 settled in Texas. He was a man of some education and natural 
 intelligence ; and had, he told us, an income of $4,000 from the 
 labour of his slaves. His residence was one of the largest 
 houses we had seen in Texas. Its windows had once been 
 glazed ; but now, out of eighty panes that once filled the 
 lower windows, thirty only remained unbroken. Not a door 
 of the house had ever been furnished with a latch, or even 
 a string ; when a door was closed it was necessary to claw it, or 
 to ask some one inside to push it, open. The furniture was 
 of the rudest description," &c. &c. 
 
 As to the amount of comfort and elegance in the style of 
 living of the Alabama planters, Mr. Olmsted says, " Much the 
 larger portion of the planters of this State live in log-houses, 
 some of them very neat and comfortable, but frequently rude 
 in construction, the spaces between the logs not stopped, the 
 windows unglazed, and altogether wanting in many of the 
 commonest conveniences possessed by the poorest class of 
 Northern farmers and labourers of the older States. Many of 
 those who live in this way possess considerable numbers of 
 slaves, and are every year buying more. Their early frontier 
 life seems to have destroyed all capacity to enjoy the usual 
 luxuries of civilized life." 2 
 
 Such are, for the most part, the members of the boasted 
 Southern Aristocracy, to which the aristocracy of England holds 
 out the right hand of fellowship. It is now, as a body, as 
 Howison described it a century ago in Virginia, " An aristocracy 
 neither of talent, nor of learning, nor of moral worth, but of 
 landed and slave interest." Its wants such as England will, 
 with any probability, be called on to supply are few ; its tastes 
 and habits unrefined ; and its aspirations pretty much limited 
 to cotton, and to negroes as producers of cotton. 
 
 1 " Journeys and Explorations," pp. 9 11. 
 
 2 Ibid. pp. 575, 576. 
 
118 SLAVERY. 
 
 2. THE NoN-SiAVEiioLDiNG WHITES. 
 
 Professor Cairnes, in the Appendix to his admirable book 
 on " The Slave Power," has made some interesting approximate 
 calculations as to the numbers and general condition of this 
 large class of the Southern population. 
 
 The owners of five slaves or more are generally rated as 
 planters ; those who hold fewer slaves are called farmers. In 
 1850 there were in all the Slave States 173,022 planters, so 
 called. Now, inasmuch as it is by no means uncommon for a 
 planter to own two or more plantations, we may safely assume 
 that these 173,022 planters owned at least 200,000 estates. The 
 whole number of plantations and farms in the Slave States was, 
 according to Colton s Atlas, in 1850, 373,106 ; deducting from 
 this number the above 200,000, we shall have remaining 173,106 
 for the rest of the white population of the South, not included 
 under the denomination of planters. 
 
 The whole number of white families in the Slave States, in 
 1850, was 1,114,687, from which if we subtract the planters 
 families as above, there remain 941,665 other white families, 
 and only 173,106 farms. Now the chief interest and occupation 
 at the South is agricultural. 
 
 In the slave-holding States, as at the North, the small farmers 
 usually possess only so much land each as can be cultivated by 
 the members of their own families ; if the holdings are larger, 
 the farmers find it more advantageous to hire slave-labour than 
 to employ such indifferent and uncertain white-labour as the 
 country affords. 1 Consequently, the number of non-slaveholding 
 and non-landholding whites engaged in agricultural operations is 
 small. It will be a liberal estimate which assumes that each of 
 the 173,106 farms furnishes employment to one-fourth of a poor 
 white family, which would make the whole number of white 
 persons occupied in agricultural employments, including the 
 families of the farmers themselves, 1,244,289 (216,382 families), 
 taking the census average as to the numbers composing the 
 families. That this estimate is ample is evident from the fact 
 that, according to the census of 1850, the whole number of 
 whites over fifteen years of age engaged in agriculture was only 
 
 1 Olmsted, Stirling, &c. &c. 
 
THE NON-SLAVEHOLDING WHITES. 119 
 
 803,052. 1 The majority of the whites thus engaged in farming 
 are found in the western part of Virginia, the eastern part of 
 Tennessee, in Kentucky, some portions of North Carolina and 
 Alabama, and in Texas. Thus, deducting these 216,382 families 
 from the 941,665 to be provided for, we have remaining 725,283, 
 comprising, according to the census average, 4,170,687 persons, 
 to be supported by some other than agricultural labour. 
 
 The above figures refer to the census of 1850. But, during 
 the subsequent ten years, the white population of the Slave 
 States had increased from 6,222,418 to 8,199,760. Increasing in 
 the same proportion, the white population not occupied in agri 
 culture has augmented from 4,170,687 to 5,496,635. If we con 
 fine our observations to the poor non-slaveholding whites of the 
 Confederate States, we shall have, according to the population 
 elsewhere given, at least 3,731,821 in that section who gain their 
 livelihood by other than agricultural employments. 
 
 We know that the manufacturing industry of the slave-holding 
 States employs but few labourers ; in 1860, according to the 
 census, there were 110,110 persons so employed in the Confede 
 rate States, and of these many were slaves. The mercantile 
 marine is very small, and can give occupation but to few 
 persons. Three-fourths, at least, of the men employed in navi 
 gating the canals and rivers are said to be Irish and Germans ; 
 the remainder are slaves ; the poor whites are so averse to labour 
 that they cannot be relied upon for continued engagements. In 
 the Southern cities and towns, the servants at hotels, the ordi 
 nary workmen, the mechanics and artisans, are foreigners or 
 slaves ; the servants in private families are slaves, of course, or 
 foreign whites in rare cases. In the vast pine-forest districts, the 
 great majority of the men employed are slaves. 
 
 All over the Slave States game is so abundant, even in the 
 vicinity of towns, that by hunting and fishing an ample supply 
 of animal food can be obtained. Moreover, the comparative 
 mildness of the climate renders clothing a less expensive article 
 of supply than at the North, and fuel is everywhere abounding. 
 Hence diminished incentives to labour. 2 
 
 Consequently, after deducting from the gross number, 3,731,821, 
 
 1 Helper, op. cit. p. 343. 
 
 2 Mr. Olmsted and Mr. Stirling, in their several works, give abundant testimony 
 as to the general idleness of the poor whites at the South. 
 
120 SLAVERY. 
 
 all who are likely to be occupied in other than agricultural pur 
 suits, we shall have left not less than 3,000,000 avowed and 
 systematic idlers in the Confederate States of America, or more 
 than one-half their total white population. 
 
 And the reason of this gigantic evil is simply that labour has 
 been made the duty and badge of slavery, and the poor whites 
 are too proud to assume them. Hence almost all the attempts 
 hitherto made to establish manufactories at the South have failed ; 
 the poor native whites will not work in them, and the planters 
 are so afraid of the influence of immigrant whites that there is 
 little or no encouragement offered to such; they are spoken 
 of as " a curse instead of a blessing, generally a worthless, un 
 principled class, enemies to our peculiar institution, and formidable 
 barriers to the success of our native mechanics." So says TJie 
 South Carolinian. 1 And here is just the difficulty; the "peculiar 
 institution " is an enemy to the poor native whites, whom it 
 degrades, and to foreign operatives whom it fears and suspects. 
 
 The testimony of Southerners themselves as to the wretched 
 condition and prospects of the millions of poor whites is unmis 
 takably confirmative of our assertions with regard to them. 
 
 A Southerner, who had resided many years in South Carolina, 
 and who had also visited Mexico, speaking to Mr. Olmsted of 
 extensive communities on the banks of the Congaree, in Carolina, 
 used the following language : " They are the descendants of the 
 former proprietors of nearly all the land of that region ; but for 
 generations their fathers have been gradually selling off to the 
 richer planters, moving in among them, and living upon the 
 purchase-money of their lands. Their children have been 
 brought up in listless, aimless idleness, more destructive to 
 them as a people than even forced and servile industry might 
 have been. They are more ignorant, their superstitions are more 
 degrading, they are much less enduring and industrious, far less 
 cheerful and animated, and very much more incapable of im 
 provement and elevation, than the most degraded poeons of 
 Mexico. Their chief sustenance is a porridge of cow-peas, and 
 the greatest luxury with. which they are acquainted is a stew of 
 bacon and peas with red pepper, which they call Hopping- John" 2 
 
 Mr, Wm. Gregg, of Charleston, in a lecture delivered before 
 
 1 Quoted by Mr. Olmsted, "Seaboard Slave States," p. 511. 
 
 2 Ibid. pp. 505, 506. 
 
THE NON-SLAVEHOLDING WHITES. 121 
 
 the South Carolina Institute, in 1851, says, " From the best esti 
 mates that I have been able to make, I put down the white 
 people who ought to work, but do not, or who are so employed 
 as to be wholly unproductive to the State, at 125,000." The 
 whole white population of South Carolina in 1850 was only 
 274,563. Mr. Gregg continues : "Any man, who is an observer 
 .of things, could hardly pass through our State without being 
 struck by the fact that all the capital, enterprise, and intelli 
 gence are employed in directing slave-labour. The consequence 
 is, that a large proportion of our poor white people is wholly 
 neglected, and suffered to waste existence in a condition only 
 one step above that of the Indian of the forest." l 
 
 Governor Hammond, of South Carolina (in 1850), says of this 
 class of its inhabitants, " Their industry, such as it is, and com 
 pensated as it is, is not, in the present condition of things, and 
 does not promise hereafter to be, adequate to procure them, 
 honestly, such a support as every white person in this coun 
 try feels himself entitled to. Some cannot be said to work at 
 all. They obtain a precarious subsistence by occasional jobs, by 
 hunting, fishing, sometimes 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." 2 And in another 
 part of the same address, Governor Hammond affirms that " $18, 
 or at most $ 19, will cover the whole necessary annual cost of 
 a full supply of wholesome and palatable food, purchased in the 
 market." Now, what a degraded, demoralised condition must 
 this large population be in (according to Governor Hammond s 
 estimate more than one-sixth, according to Mr. Gregg s almost 
 one-half, the total white population of the State), which is 
 willing to live habitually in the disgraceful way pointed out by 
 Governor Hammond, rather than condescend to earn, by honest 
 labour, the insignificant sum of $19 annually. And this under 
 the government of the creme de la creme of Southern aristocracy 
 in South Carolina ! 
 
 Mr. Tarver, of Missouri, writing of the same class in that 
 State, says, " The non-slaveholders possess, generally, but very 
 small means, and the land which they own is almost universally 
 poor, yielding but a very scanty subsistence. The more fertile 
 
 1 Helper, op. cit, p. 404. 
 
 8 Olmsted s "Journeys," &c. vol. ii. p. 294. 
 
122 SLAVERY. 
 
 soil is in the Lands of the slave-holders, and must always remain 
 so. This condition of things depresses the energies of the poorer 
 people. . . And I lament to say that I have observed, of late 
 years, an evident deterioration taking place in this part of the 
 population the younger being less educated, less industrious, 
 and in every way less respectable than their ancestors." l 
 
 Of the poor white population of the pine districts, Mr. 
 Olmsted says, " The negroes are decidedly superior to them in 
 every intellectual and moral respect. Among them is a large 
 number, I should think a majority, entirely uneducated, poverty- 
 stricken, and vagabond I mean 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 thereto 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 
 nor 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, beans, &c. They will 
 own a few swine, that find their own food in the forest, and cer 
 tainly a rifle and dogs. The men profess to spend most of their 
 time in hunting." 2 
 
 The following is written by a gentleman, whose name, says Mr. 
 De Bow, " has long been illustrious for the services he has ren 
 dered to the South : " " All of you must be aware of the condi 
 tion of the class of people I allude to. What progress have 
 they made in the last hundred years ? and what is to be their 
 future condition, unless some mode of employment be devised 
 to improve it ? A noble race of people ! reduced to a condition 
 but little above the wild Indian of the forest, or the European 
 gipsy, without education, and in many instances unable to pro 
 cure the food necessary to develop the natural man. They seem 
 to be the only class of people who are not disposed to emigrate 
 to other States, while our wealthy and intelligent citizens are 
 leaving us by scores, taking with them the treasures accumulated 
 
 1 Helper, op. cit. p. 130. 
 
 2 Olmsted, "Seaboard Slave States," pp. 348, 349. 
 
THE NON-SLAVEHOLDING WHITES. 123 
 
 by mercantile thrift, as well as by the growth of cotton/ and the 
 consequent exhaustion of our soil." 1 This destitution prevails 
 in an agricultural country, where land is of a fabulous cheap 
 ness, and where labour is so scarce that the cotton-planters cannot 
 supply the demand for their great staple, so that, in their estima 
 tion, it is absolutely necessary to re-establish the African slave- 
 trade ; and where, too, "wholesome and palatable food may be 
 purchased, in the market," at the rate of five cents a day, or less, 
 for each grown person. 
 
 This is the population which Governor Adams, of South 
 Carolina, pronounced " hopelessly doomed to ignorance, poverty 
 and crime ; " which Mr. Lumpkin, of Georgia, characterized as 
 "poor, degraded, half-fed, half-clothed, and ignorant without 
 Sabbath-schools, or any other kind of instruction, mental or 
 moral, and without any just appreciation of character." 
 
 The poor whites have never been regarded with favour by the 
 planters. General Marion, South Carolina, said of them, almost 
 a hundred years ago, " The poor here are very poor, because, not 
 being necessary to the rich, who have their slaves to do all their 
 work, they get no employment." Other reasons are given by 
 Governor Hammond, in the quotation we have made a few pages 
 before, viz. : they are idle, adverse to labour, and, consequently, 
 being without any intellectual and moral training, immoral and 
 dishonest ; and their example has a bad effect upon the slaves. 
 Hence, as we have seen, the planters are constantly endeavour 
 ing to accomplish the removal of this class from the vicinity of 
 their plantations, by purchasing the surrounding land. 
 
 But another reason for the dislike of the planters towards 
 this class is, the consciousness that their interests are dissimilar 
 and antagonistic ; for the poor whites can have no possible 
 interest in the maintenance of slavery ; on the contrary, this 
 institution is the prolific cause of all their poverty and degrada 
 tion. Hence they are looked upon with a certain fear by the 
 slaveholders. De Bow s Review for January 1850, 2 revealed this 
 apprehension as follows : " The great mass of our poor white 
 .population is beginning to understand that they have rights, and 
 that they also are entitled to some of the sympathy which should 
 fall upon the suffering. They are fast learning that there is an 
 
 1 Olmsted, "Journeys," &c. vol. ii. pp. 293, 294, quoted from De Bow. 
 
 2 Quoted by Mr. Olmsted, "Journeys," &c. vol. ii. p. 357. 
 
124 SLAVEEY. 
 
 almost infinite world of industry opening before them, by which 
 they can elevate themselves and their children from wretched 
 ness and ignorance to comfort and intelligence. It is this great 
 upheaving of our masses that ive have to fear, so far as our peculiar 
 institutions are concerned." Hence, the Legislatures of the South 
 ern States, under the sway of the slaveholders, have done as little 
 as possible, as we have seen, to elevate and educate this popula 
 tion. For with education would come the perception of the 
 wrongs inflicted upon them, and of the true cause thereof, together 
 with the intelligence and the power to right themselves. 
 
 This class has always been made use of by the wealthy and 
 intriguing schemers of the South. It furnished the recruits for 
 the Cuban and Central American expeditions, and one can readily 
 understand how easily it has been led to co-operate in the slave 
 holders rebellion. Fighting as regular soldiers is a much more 
 respectable avocation than any it has ever been engaged in in 
 peace ; the men are brave, and accustomed to regard the planters 
 as their natural rulers ; having nothing but their lives to lose, 
 the prospect of gain by the war, the excitements of military life, 
 and the lure held out to them that, Southern independence gained, 
 the African slave-trade will be re-opened, and every white man 
 become a slaveholder at small cost these were inducements 
 more than enough to gain their hearty concurrence. The present 
 war will, if anything can, convince the poor whites who survive 
 it that their great enemy is not Northern Abolitionism, as the 
 slave-owners have taught them to believe, but the peculiar 
 institution ; and that their only hope of ever being able to enter 
 the promised land " the infinite world of industry," lies in the 
 abolition of slavery. Nothing save this can ever accomplish, or 
 render possible, the regeneration of this the largest class of the 
 Southern population. 
 
 It appears to us, then, that the white population of the South 
 slave-holders and non-slaveholders offers but a very sorry 
 prospect to the English manufacturing and commercial classes. 
 And so long as the labour-system of the Confederacy is a servile 
 one, independence can only make it less promising, because 
 society will become more of a slaveocracy than before, and 
 the evils of slavery will become more pervading and more 
 
THE SLAVES. 125 
 
 unmitigated. What few seeds of opposition to slavery it may 
 have contained previously will infallibly be destroyed by the 
 very success of the attempt to uphold and perpetuate the system. 
 The poor whites will have been swept away by scores of thousands ; 
 the small farmers will have been ruined, and the triumphant 
 planters will be left amidst their wretched slaves and the havoc 
 and desolation of the war. No imagery so well depicts this 
 result of the conflict as that employed by Milton to describe 
 the scene disclosed to Satan when, hurled " with hideous ruin 
 and combustion" from heaven, which he had endeavoured to 
 infect with his crime, he awoke to a full sense of his condition, 
 where 
 
 " Darkness visible 
 
 Served only to discover sights of woe, 
 Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace 
 And rest can never dwell, hope never come." 
 
 3. THE SLAVES. 
 
 Much has been written to prove, as some compensation for the 
 admitted evils of slavery, that the material condition, at least, of 
 the slaves is far better than that of the mass of the labouring 
 population of Europe, or of the Free States of the American 
 Union. Even in the country of Wilberforce and Clarkson, the 
 philosophers of the Saturday Review and the Times school have 
 argued that "there is, after all, but little essential difference 
 between the condition of a slave, who is supported by his master 
 in exchange for his labour, and that of a free man, who is obliged 
 to expend the wages which he receives for his work in support 
 ing himself and his family." 
 
 We admit that the slaves at the South are sufficiently pro 
 vided with the mere necessaries of life, even when, from age, 
 infirmity, or sickness, they cannot labour for their masters. But, 
 from the very relationship of master and slave, this material well- 
 being is uncertain, and subject to contingencies over which 
 certainly the slave, and often the master, has no control caprice, 
 passion, cruelty of disposition, ignorance, faults of overseers, 
 death of the owner, and sale of the slave. Even self-interest, 
 which, we are told, will generally secure good treatment and 
 proper support for the black, is a broken reed for him to lean 
 
126 SLAVERY. 
 
 upon : in Cuba it has not prevented the slaves from being worked 
 to death in the ratio of from 3 per cent, to 7 per cent, per annum 
 beyond their increase. 1 In our own slaveholding States, where 
 the greater cost of slaves, as compared with Cuba, makes their 
 lives and vigour objects of more consequence to their owners, 
 they are often overworked and maltreated shamefully. 2 But the 
 fact that the slave cannot be sure of receiving even mere 
 material good treatment is evident from this, that he cannot 
 claim his own person as his own ; it may be sold, whipped, and 
 otherwise maltreated by the sanction even of the law. 
 
 It is worth while to inquire, what is the amount of material 
 care which the slaveholders afford to their slaves. In sickness 
 they are medicated by the overseer or by a physician ; they are 
 housed, clothed, and fed. 
 
 As to the food of slaves. In North Carolina the law of 1753 
 did order that " a quart of corn per day " should be provided as 
 the food of a slave ; but the Eevised Statutes of 1836-37 substi 
 tuted for this specification the vague term "properly fed! In 
 Louisiana, an Act of 1806 directs that " every owner shall be 
 held to give to his slaves one barrel of Indian corn, or the 
 equivalent thereof in rice, beans, or other grain, and a pint of salt, 
 and to deliver the same to the said slaves in kind, every month, 
 and never in money, under a penalty of $10 for every offence." 
 It also ordains that, as clothing, each slave " shall be entitled to 
 receive from his owner one linen shirt and pantaloons for the 
 summer, and a linen shirt and woollen great-coat and pantaloons 
 for the winter/ The other slave-holding States do not pretend 
 to fix the amount or kind of food or clothing, but direct that it 
 shall be proper, sufficient, &c. 3 But it must be borne in mind 
 that in no slave-holding State is a negro s testimony, whether 
 slave or free, admitted against a white man ; consequently, the 
 
 1 Statement of the British Consul in Cuba, quoted by Mr. Stirling, " Letters 
 from Slave States," p. 109. 
 
 2 Mr. Stirling quotes, from De Bow s Review, the Report of a Committee of 
 Slave-holders, the admission that "as the only aim of the overseers, in general, is 
 to get the largest possible crop for the year, we can readily conceive the strong 
 inducement they have to overwork our slaves ; and masters are often much to 
 blame for encouraging this feeling in their overseers." Ibid. p. 290. Mr. Wirt, 
 in his day, characterized this class of persons as "last and lowest, most abject, 
 degraded, unprincipled," &c. 
 
 3 Judge Stroud s "Sketch of the Laws relating to Slavery," pp. 4665. 
 
THE SLAVES. 127 
 
 slave can have no legal redress against, nor can lie establish 
 (excepting by evidence of starvation or suffering) the fact of 
 insufficiency of food or clothing. - 
 
 We believe that as a general rule the amount and variety of 
 food given to the slaves is greater than the above legal enact 
 ments require, and that pork is usually allowed in some form, 
 three pounds per week being the largest allowance for an adult 
 field slave. 
 
 In a document presented to the United States Government in 
 1846, and signed by forty-eight sugar-planters of Louisiana, the 
 cost of clothing and feeding a working slave was stated at $30 
 per annum ; of clothing alone, at from $10 to $15 annually. 
 The cost of food is greater in Louisiana than in any other slave- 
 holding State, because but little corn is raised there. A planter 
 of South Carolina, in the same document, estimated the total 
 annual expense of both food and clothing at only $15 per slave. 1 
 
 Now what labouring man in the Free States contents himself 
 with food which costs only 5 1 cents less than 3d., per day? 
 The lowest price paid by agricultural labourers in the Free 
 States is 21 cents daily for their board ; the majority of labourers 
 pay, probably, twice as much. For years past labourers in those 
 States have received from $1 to $1.75 per day, as wages, accord 
 ing to their labour and skill. Consequently there is no one 
 who. if he be industrious and well-disposed, is not able not only 
 to provide for himself and his family far better materially than 
 any slave is provided for, but also to set aside something against 
 emergencies, or to lay the foundation of competency and even 
 wealth. 
 
 Moreover, the duration of the daily task of the slave is far 
 greater than that of the free labourer. In most of the slave- 
 holding States the law is silent as to the number of hours which 
 the slave shall labour. In South Carolina the Code fixes four 
 teen hours daily during six months of the year, and fifteen hours 
 during the remainder, as the legal task. The other States forbid 
 excessive labour. In Louisiana, during the sugar-making season, 
 eighteen hours daily is the common day s work. But the law 
 which forbids his testimony renders more or less nugatory any 
 attempt to limit the overtasking of the slave. The Supreme 
 Court of Alabama has given legal validity to the custom which 
 
 i Quoted by Mr. Olmsted, " Journeys," &e. 
 
128 SLAVERY. 
 
 prevails in cases of real or pretended sickness of the slave, as 
 follows : " The master or owner, and not the slave, is the 
 judge whether the slave be too sick to labour. The slave cannot 
 therefore resist the order of the master or owner to go to work." 1 
 In the Free States, nowhere is the legal or customary day s 
 work over ten hours ; if any man voluntarily works beyond that 
 time he is paid in proportion. 
 
 But there are other elements in the material fate of the slave 
 which, one would suppose (as all Northern Americans did 
 suppose, until within the last three years), would make any 
 honest Englishman nobleman, scholar, statesman, merchant, 
 manufacturer, or what not ashamed, for any paltry motive of 
 policy, or gain, to advocate the cause of the Government which 
 avowedly upholds the system of slavery. John Locke long ago 
 characterized it as " the state of war continued between a lawful 
 conqueror and his captive, so opposite to the generous temper 
 and courage of our nation, that tis hardly to be conceived that 
 an Englishman, much less a gentleman, should plead for it." 
 
 A slave has no rights whatever. Judge Wardlaw, of South 
 Carolina, has decided that " every endeavour to extend to a slave 
 positive rights is an attempt to reconcile inherent contradictions ; 
 for, in the very nature of things, he is subject to despotism." 2 
 
 He has no right of ownership over his own body ; he can be 
 sold whenever the necessity or the caprice of his owner may 
 direct his sale. A Church in South Carolina sold a slave to 
 purchase a piece of plate for the communion-table. 3 
 
 He has no right to the proceeds of his own labour, even over 
 and above that which by the master s consent may be due to 
 the said master ; if, with the latter s permission, the slave shall 
 gain any thing in compensation of this extra labour, the slave can 
 establish no claim to it. There are many judicial decisions in 
 point. The following case occurred in 1846: "The plaintiff s 
 slave, William, made money over and above his wages, and 
 placed it in the hands of the defendant to aid in purchasing his 
 (William s) children. The children were accordingly purchased 
 by the defendant. The Court held that the plaintiff was entitled 
 to recover the money from the defendant. Notwithstanding any 
 
 1 Judge Stroud, op. cU. pp. 39 46. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 34. 
 
 3 Senator Simmer s "Speech on the Barbarism of Slavery," p. 42. 
 
THE SLAVES. 129 
 
 promise by the master that his slave shall have certain acquisi 
 tions, all the acquisitions of the slave in possession are the pro 
 perty of his master." A slave cannot by law hire himself out 
 to labour, even by the consent of his master ; the master is liable 
 to a fine who permits it. In Mississippi no slave can cultivate 
 cotton for his own use, under penalty of a fine against the master. 
 Slaves cannot possess property by devise, descent, or purchase. 1 
 
 In the abstract, can anything be more mean than that one 
 man, in exchange for the merest modicum ot material support 
 necessary to sustain life and vigour, should seize and appro 
 priate to himself all the labour of another, his equal before 
 God, the sum of which far outvalues the compensation given ? 
 Does it not realize the description by the poet of that charitable 
 individual who 
 
 " "With one hand put 
 A penny in the urn of poverty, 
 And with the other took a shilling out ? " 
 
 A slave can make no contract of any kind, not even ot 
 marriage. The relationship formed between slaves, to which 
 the term marriage is conventionally applied, has no sanctity, 
 neither are any civil rights attached to it. " A slave has never 
 maintained an action against the violator of his bed. A slave is 
 not admonished for incontinence, or punished for fornication or 
 adultery; never prosecuted for bigamy, or petty treason for 
 killing a husband being a slave, any more than admitted to an 
 appeal for murder." The Supreme Court of North Carolina 
 decided " that a slave, who was the wife of another slave, might 
 give evidence against him, even in a capital case/ The law 
 does not prevent (however in some instances and in certain 
 societies custom or sentiment may oppose) the forced separation, 
 by sale or otherwise, of man and wife, or parent and child, thus 
 violating two of God s own laws almost as ancient as the 
 creation. 2 
 
 The master may inflict, or authorize to be inflicted, upon his 
 slave, almost any kind or amount of punishment he may deem 
 fit. The law and public opinion do indeed secure, to a great 
 degree, the slave against loss of life, and, as it is considered 
 in the Slave States, dreadful cruelty, from his master or his 
 
 1 Judge Stroud, op. cit. pp. 74 81. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 99. 
 
 K 
 
130 SLAVERY. 
 
 master s representative. But here, as in other cases, the law 
 which refuses to receive a negro s testimony against either, 
 throws the door wide open to great abuses. And the authors of 
 atrocities such as no other codes would tolerate or palliate, are 
 subjected only to pecuniary fines in many of the Slave States of 
 America. Thus the Act of 1740, of South Carolina " the purest 
 in its slave condition," as one of her present distinguished men 
 styles it contains a provision which, according to Judge Stroud, 
 has never been repealed, to this effect : " In case any person 
 shall wilfully cut out the tongue, put out the eye, castrate, or 
 cruelly scald, bum, or deprive any slave of any limb or member, 
 or shall inflict any other cruel punishment, other than by 
 whipping or beating with a horsewhip, cowskin, 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 one hundred pounds current money." l A cruel feature 
 in the spirit of the law is that, not only cannot a slave testify 
 against his master, but the latter is almost always befriended by 
 the law. Thus we find a judicial decision of a court in Virginia 
 declaring, " It is the policy of the law, in respect to the relation 
 of master and slave, and for the sake of securing proper subordi 
 nation and obedience on the part of the latter, to protect the 
 master from prosecution, even if the whipping and punishment 
 be malicious, cruel, and excessive." 2 The Supreme Court of 
 North Carolina has even decided that " the hirer of a slave 
 cannot be indicted for a cruel and unreasonable battery on 
 such slave." 3 
 
 Slaves cannot redeem themselves, nor obtain a change of 
 masters, though cruel treatment may have rendered such change 
 necessary for their personal safety. This is true of all the 
 States as to the non-possession of the right of redemption. In 
 Louisiana and Kentucky alone, there are provisions which make 
 it possible to force a change of masters. But in Louisiana, the 
 master must first be convicted of cruel treatment, and, secondly, 
 it is optional with the judge to grant the change of ownership 
 or not. In Kentucky, if the jury shall be satisfied that the 
 slave has been treated cruelly and inhumanly, and so as to 
 
 1 Judge Stroud, op. cit. pp. 55 71. 
 
 Senator Sumner s Speech, p. 38. 
 3 Judge Stroud, op. ait. p. 73. 
 
THE SLAVES. 131 
 
 endanger his life or limb, he may be sold to another master. 
 The difficulty, however, of proving cruelty and inhumanity 
 against the master or owner, the testimony of the victim him 
 self, or of any other negro, not being receivable, is so great that 
 this provision of the law must necessarily be almost futile. 1 
 
 But it is often urged that public sentiment at the South is 
 more humane than the law, and does not allow of occurrences 
 which the law itself sanctions. We do not doubt that, in indi 
 vidual instances, the fact is so. Nevertheless, when we consider 
 that the Southern Law-makers have always been chosen from 
 the elite of the land, and that the majority of the slave-holders 
 are illiterate and unrefined beings, we are compelled to believe 
 that, in general, the law is more humane than most of the slave- 
 masters, instead of the reverse. 
 
 From these and other similar enormities connected with the 
 system of slavery, it results that, even in a purely material 
 view, there is no comparison whatever to be instituted between 
 the condition of the slave and that of the free labourer. 
 
 But, "it is written, Man shall not live by bread alone." 
 Nevertheless, the Southern slave has scarce anything else 
 allowed him. The Northern labourer or mechanic is not only 
 able by his own industry to provide for the material wants of 
 himself and his family, but he may, in every considerable town 
 or city, by means of public lectures, by the use of public libraries, 
 by attendance upon night-schools maintained at the public 
 expense or by private liberality, improve himself intellectually 
 and morally to almost any extent. And he is assured that his 
 children will, without expense to himself, receive an education 
 which will fit them for any calling, or for any position in the 
 gift of a free and intelligent people. Nowhere in the world has 
 the industrious labourer who is desirous of improvement, so 
 wide a career as in the Free States of the American Union. 
 Mr. Lincoln, the worthy President of the United States, is an 
 apt illustration of this great and glorious truth a truth which 
 
 1 Judge Stroud, op. tit. pp. 93 95. So notoriously cruel and unjust are the 
 decisions of petty tribunals in respect to slaves that, even in South Carolina, a 
 Governor protested to the State Legislature against them as follows: "The 
 administration of our laws in relation to our coloured population, by our courts 
 of magistrates and freeholders, as these courts are at present constituted, calls 
 loudly for reform. Their decisions are rarely in conformity with either justice or 
 humanity." Stirling s Letters, p. 292. 
 
 K2 
 
132 SLAVERY. 
 
 is sneered at only by those whose souls are incapable of appre 
 ciating its importance to the millions whom it blesses. The Free 
 States are full of men whom this -peculiarity of American 
 institutions has elevated from the position of simple day- 
 labourers and mechanics to that of wealthy, educated and 
 honoured public benefactors, whose children are the men of the 
 country. But what future has the Southern slave to look 
 forward to, to cheer and stimulate him in his toil? His brightest 
 anticipation must be that, having lived a slave, like his fathers, 
 he may at death, instead of being buried like a dog, "have a 
 sort of prayers said over him," as the Louisiana overseer told 
 Mr. Russell was sometimes done. 1 
 
 Jefferson, in alluding to the possibility of a slave insurrection, 
 said, " The Almighty has no attribute which can take sides with 
 the slave-holders in such a contest." In view of the multi 
 farious and enormous wickednesses of the system, even as we 
 have only hinted at them in these pages, may we not believe 
 that the Almighty has no attribute which is not in direct 
 hostility to it ; and that this war, inaugurated by the South to 
 uphold and perpetuate the institution, must end only with its 
 overthrow ? 
 
 4. THE FREE NEGROES. 
 
 The North is certainly chargeable with injustice in the treat 
 ment of the negroes, but to nothing like the degree imputed to it. 
 
 In the six New England States the negroes have the same 
 political privileges as the whites ; they are citizens ; they vote 
 on a par with the whites. In New York and Pennsylvania, and 
 probably in most of the other States, they vote provided they 
 possess a certain property qualification, which, in New York, 
 must be of the value of $25 freehold. 
 
 In all the States of the North they are educated at the public 
 expense. In the New England States they frequent the same 
 schools as the whites, no distinction is made ; in the other 
 States separate school-rooms are provided. We have seen that 
 
 i See Ante, p. 98. For a comparison of the respective conditions of the slaves 
 and free labourers, see Mr. Olmsted s "Journeys and Explorations," vol. ii. 
 chap. vi. The reader will find, too, many details concerning the slaves in the 
 "Report upon the Condition and Management of the Emancipated Negroes in 
 the United States," made to the Secretary of "War ; this Report was reprinted in 
 the Daily News, of London, Sept. 25th and 30th, 1863. 
 
THE FREE NEGROES. 133 
 
 in the Free States- a larger proportionate number of coloured 
 youths are instructed at the public expense, than of whites at 
 the South. 
 
 As to religious worship, the blacks are as free as the whites. 
 They have their own churches and their own clergymen, and 
 they assemble without restraint or restriction. And there is 
 probably not a community in the Free States where white 
 persons do not contribute, if called upon, to support the reli 
 gious worship of the negroes. 
 
 They have the same rights of person and property as the 
 whites. In the courts of justice they have the same conside 
 ration, and their testimony is received with as much respect as 
 that of white men. They inhabit such parts of our towns and 
 cities as they please. In the city of New York they possess 
 property valued at more than $10,000,000 ; in Philadelphia the 
 value of their property is still greater, their number is larger, 
 and their condition more prosperous even than in New York. 
 Indeed, it is a well-known fact that, in most of our towns and 
 cities, there are scores of black families living in a degree of 
 comfort and of elegance undreamed of by persons of the same 
 station as themselves in any other part of the world. In fact, 
 the prejudice which exists against this class may be fairly said 
 to be much more injurious to the whites, as republicans and 
 Christians, than it is materially prejudicial to the negroes. In 
 proof of this Mr. Olmsted quotes the testimony of several 
 Virginia planters. 
 
 The principal fact urged against the people of the Free States 
 as to their treatment of the blacks is, that the latter are not 
 allowed to ride in the same public conveyances as the whites. 
 But this assertion is true only of the cities of Philadelphia 
 and to a less degree New York, in both of which there is 
 a considerable number of resident Southern families of wealth 
 and fashion, who have contributed to keep up and increase the 
 prejudice against the negroes. With these insignificant excep 
 tions, the negro travels freely all over the Free States without let 
 or hindrance from his colour. 1 
 
 But how are the free negroes treated at the South ? 
 
 As was to have been anticipated, the whole spirit of slavery 
 
 i See Address of Rev. H. W. Beecher, at Manchester, for a statement of the 
 condition, of the negroes at the North. Daily News, Oct. 12th, 1863. 
 
134 SLAVERY. 
 
 is hostile to emancipation, not only because this act removes 
 a slave from that toil which is the source of the master s wealth, 
 but because it establishes at the centre of the system a focus 
 of discontent and danger. This aversion to enfranchisement of 
 slaves has grown with the sentiment which upholds slavery. 
 When this institution was regarded as an evil, it was not 
 unusual to give freedom to slaves as a reward for some special 
 act of merit or service, or as an evidence of attachment on the 
 part of the master. But since slavery has come to be regarded 
 as a blessing both to the slave and to the master, laws have 
 been made which render emancipation very rare. In many of 
 the States the slave, when freed, must leave the State under 
 pain of being sold into slavery ; in most of the States special 
 permissions must be obtained of the Legislatures or of County 
 Courts, subject to penalties if all the requisitions and restric 
 tions are not complied with on the part both of masters and 
 slaves. 
 
 The harsh spirit of the law has been shown repeatedly. Thus, 
 in North Carolina, a free coloured man had accumulated suffi 
 cient money to redeem his wife and children from slavery ; 
 other children were born to him after the said purchase of the 
 wife s freedom. By the law of the State all these were the 
 fathers slaves, and not free persons as he was. Subsequently 
 the father became involved in debt ; his creditors obtained 
 judgments against him, and under these his wife and children 
 were sold into perpetual slavery. 
 
 In many of the States a slave, who discovers a plot amongst 
 other slaves, or any other crime tending to endanger the public 
 tranquillity or safety, may obtain his freedom by decree of the 
 Legislature. 1 
 
 The free negro, at the South, has no protector or friend ; even 
 the law is his enemy ; the white man hates and suspects him ; 
 the slave despises him. " Poorer than a free nigger/ " Worse 
 than a free nigger," are expressions used by slaves when 
 they wish to convey their ideas of a poverty and wretchedness 
 deeper than they themselves even have ever sunk to. 
 
 A free negro cannot be a witness in a court of justice, 
 excepting at the trial of another free negro, or slave. He is 
 not allowed to possess or carry fire-arms. If he strike or insult 
 
 i Judge Stroud, op. cit. pp. 229-247 ; Revue des Deux Mondes, Dec. 15th, 1860. 
 
THE FREE NEGROES. 135 
 
 a white lie is punished by fine, or imprisonment, or both. In 
 some States, if he be the party attacked and if, in defending 
 himself, he kill the white he is tried for murder, and not for 
 simple manslaughter. 
 
 All assemblages for religious worship must, according to the 
 law, be held in presence of one or more white persons, and only 
 between sunrise and sunset. If a free negro be found in a 
 religious assembly even of white persons, excepting within the 
 hours stated, he is liable to be removed and whipped. 
 
 Free negroes, as well as slaves, are allowed to circulate only 
 within certain limits, and with a passport; and if they are 
 caught by the regular patrol, or by any white person, beyond 
 those limits or without their passport, they are liable to arrest 
 and punishment. In Tennessee no free negro is allowed to 
 travel by railway, or other public conveyance, except some 
 white person shall have deposited $1,000 as security. If a free 
 negro leave the State to inhabit some other, and return to the 
 former without permission, he is punished for the first offence 
 by whipping, and for repetition by being sold into perpetual 
 slavery. Any free negro from the North, or from foreign 
 countries, arriving at a Southern port, is immediately arrested 
 and kept in confinement, at the expense of the vessel, so long 
 as the latter shall remain in port. 
 
 In the Slave States the law forbids arid punishes all attempts 
 to instruct free negroes, either by white persons or negroes, under 
 penalty of imprisonment, fine, or whipping, or all combined. 1 
 
 Until a comparatively recent period free negroes were citizens 
 of North Carolina, and as such claimed and exercised the rights 
 of franchise ; but the amended Constitution of that State abro 
 gated to them this privilege. 2 Now they have no right of 
 citizenship in any of the Slave States. 
 
 In 1859 the Legislature of Arkansas passed a law of banish 
 ment against all free negroes ; and all who should be found 
 within the State, at the expiration of one year, were to be sold 
 as slaves to the highest bidder. The Legislature of Missouri 
 enacted a similar law; and also decreed that any free negro 
 from any other State, who should enter Missouri and remain 
 more than twelve hours, should be arrested and sold into 
 
 1 Revue, des Deux Mondes, Dec. 15th, 1860 ; Judge Stroud, op. cit. 
 
 2 Livermore, "Historical Research," pp. 610. 
 
136 SLAVERY. 
 
 slavery. The Louisiana Legislature passed a corresponding 
 law. The Legislature of Mississippi granted the free negroes 
 only six months to leave the State on pain of being sold as 
 slaves, and directed that the proceeds of such sales should be 
 paid into the Common School Fund of the State. The Legis 
 lature of Georgia enacted that all free negroes, convicted of 
 idleness or immorality, should be enslaved for one year ; and on 
 a repetition of the offence should, if convicted, be sold into 
 perpetual slavery; and that any free negro, convicted and 
 condemned for any offence to the payment of a fine, should, 
 if unable to pay the fine, be sold for the benefit of the Treasury. 1 
 
 Petitions 2 signed by many inhabitants of Maryland were 
 presented to the Legislature, praying that the free negroes in 
 that State, 75,000 in number, should be sold as slaves, and 
 distributed amongst the white citizens, on the grounds that " the 
 social and industrial interests of the State, the manifest destiny 
 of the negro race, and the inalienable rights of the whites " 
 demanded this measure ; additional reasons assigned were : 1st. 
 " That the free negro does not work, becomes corrupted by idle 
 ness, and therefore it is a duty to improve his moral condition 
 by enslaving him." 2nd. That, "by working, the free negro 
 becomes a competitor against the white man, and the preserva 
 tion of our just prerogative of superiority demands that this 
 immoral competition shall be at once put an end to." These 
 contradictory propositions were not assented to by the Legis 
 lature ; it did not order the sale of the free negroes, but it did 
 authorize the whites to compel the children of free negroes to 
 labour without the consent of their parents ; and it also passed 
 another law authorizing free negroes to sell themselves as slaves. 
 
 From these considerations, then, it is manifest that the condi 
 tion of the free negroes at the North is, beyond comparison, 
 better than at the South. In the former the prejudice against 
 them is but a prejudice, local in its operation, and based upon no 
 law ; in the latter it is -not only an antipathy against their 
 colour, combined with a fear and a suspicion of their influence 
 upon the slaves, but it assumes the form of positive and odious 
 laws. The negroes themselves admit, what indeed is notorious 
 to all observers, that their condition at the North was every year 
 
 1 Revue des Deux Mondes, Dec. 15th, 1860. 
 
 2 Ibid. 
 
THE FREE NEGEOES. 137 
 
 improving, even before the war. 1 Since this great crisis the 
 prejudice against them has been fast disappearing, in conse 
 quence partly of the good conduct and bravery of those of them 
 who have enlisted into the army, and partly because the nation 
 has awakened to a consciousness of its wrong-doing towards 
 them. 2 Colour, as a badge and symbol of inferiority and ser 
 vitude, is disappearing with slavery, and we do not doubt that 
 soon the negro will willingly be admitted to all the privileges, 
 rights, and immunities of citizenship, on the broadest basis of 
 equality with the whites. Every fact shows that the negro has 
 participated in, and progressed with, the general advancement of 
 society in the Free States. This must necessarily continue more 
 unrestrictedly than before the war. But at the South, so long as 
 slavery endures, the condition of the free blacks must inevitably 
 grow worse and worse. 
 
 1 Stirling s "Letters." 
 
 2 It is almost impossible to keep pace with the progress being made in this 
 direction. Less than a year ago, Sella Martin, a coloured preacher in New York, 
 wrote as follows to the Star, of June 4th, 1863 : " There are now coloured men 
 employed by the United States Government as officers in the custom-houses of 
 New York and Boston. Coloured men have been commissioned as surgeons in 
 the army ; coloured soldiers are received on an equality with white soldiers ; and 
 there is at this moment presiding over one of the wealthiest Presbyteries of the 
 city of Brooklyn, a coloured man who is not yet forty years of age. " Since that 
 time more than 50,000 coloured men have been enlisted into the army, and 
 several thousands into the naval service, in which they mess with white sailors. 
 Some of the best white officers in the service have been eager to obtain command 
 in negro regiments ; negro soldiers are placed upon a perfect equality with white, 
 as regards pay and rations ; and in case of levying of troops by conscription, they 
 are to be placed on the same footing. Negro regiments marching through our 
 cities now are received as enthusiastically as white troops, and banners and colours 
 are presented to them by the fairest in the land. And the negro soldiers are as 
 brave and as well disciplined under the hottest fire as any in the army. The pre 
 judice against the blacks at the North has been chiefly confined to the labouring 
 population of our cities, and especially to the foreigners, with whom the negroes 
 come into competition as labourers. But the supply of labour has become so 
 unequal to the demand, in consequence of the ravages of the war, that, for some 
 years, at least, the whites will scarcely feel this competition. Hence an additional 
 source of improvement in the condition of the blacks. 
 
138 SLAVEKY. 
 
 VII. 
 
 COMPARATIVE PROGRESS AND RESOURCES OF NORTH 
 AND SOUTH. 
 
 A FEW statistics will show conclusively how slavery, by limiting 
 the kind and quality of labour, and by preventing the due 
 development of the resources of the Slave States, has impeded 
 their progress. 
 
 The South boasts of being an agricultural country, and to 
 agriculture has been devoted almost exclusively the capital and 
 energy of the people. Yet, notwithstanding this concentration 
 of forces they have been far excelled by their Northern brethren 
 even in this very field of their choice. 
 
 In 1850, the value of the agricultural products of the Slave 
 States, including cotton, rice, tobacco, and sugar, was estimated 
 at $46 1,1 29,746, that of the animals slaughtered for food, 
 $54,395,415, total $515,525,161 ; of the free States, agricul 
 tural products, $566,130,832, animals slaughtered, $61,157,617 
 total $627,288,449 ; difference in favour of the Free States, 
 $112,163,288. 
 
 The South points with triumph to her cotton-crop, as being the 
 great regulator of the foreign exchange for the United States. In 
 fact, it was the possession of this great staple of which the Slave 
 States held almost the monopoly, and the possession of which 
 was of such momentous importance to Europe, and especially to 
 England, which the Southern leaders believed would secure the 
 success of their rebellion, inasmuch as it would insure European 
 interference in their behalf. This was avowed by the Southern 
 Quarterly Review, at the outbreak of the war. But the noble 
 and intelligent patience and fortitude of the British people, 
 combined with the unexpected resources and patriotism of the 
 Northern States, have shown the comparative insignificance of 
 cotton : 
 
RESOURCES OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 139 
 
 In 1850 the value of the Indian corn crop was 59,207,110 
 
 Wheat 20,097,188 
 
 Cotton 19,720,744 
 
 In 1860, value of the Indian corn crop of the United States, 
 
 99,654,204 
 
 Wheat 51,355,014 
 
 Hay 42,849,246 
 
 Cotton 33,267,692 
 
 Oats 32,526,444 
 
 In 1862, the second year of the war, the exports from the 
 single port of New York, when not a bale of cotton left the 
 harbour, amounted in value to 1,000,000?. more than the entire 
 exports of all the slave-holding States in 1859, when their cotton- 
 crop alone was estimated at 40,000,000^ Such is the recupera 
 tive energy and capacity of a free people, which has enabled 
 the Government, thus far, to carry the country through this 
 tremendous struggle, and which, we believe, will bring it to a 
 triumphant conclusion. 
 
 The aggregate value of the farms, the implements and ma 
 chinery used for agricultural purposes, together with the live 
 stock, was, for the Free States $2,415,265,890 ; for the Slave 
 States $1,436,709,923 ; estimating the slaves as worth $400 
 each, their aggregate value was $1,280,121,600, making the 
 entire capital invested in the Slave States in agriculture (as 
 suming that all the slaves are so employed, which is not strictly 
 correct), $2,716,831,523. Thus we find that although the capital 
 invested in this way at the South was $301,565,633 greater than 
 at the North, the revenue derived from the same in the former 
 was $112,163,288 less than in the latter section. This shows 
 conclusively that, in spite of superior fertility of soil and of 
 a milder climate, which, in many ways, makes agricultural 
 operations less expensive, slave labour is far inferior to free 
 labour. 
 
 The same important truth is evident if we compare the pro 
 ductiveness of the two sections with respect to particular crops. 
 In 1850, the average yield of Wheat was 12 bushels per acre in 
 the Free States, against 9 in the Slave States ; of Oats, 27 bushels 
 against 9 ; of Rye, 18 bushels against 11 ; of Indian Corn, 31 
 i Bigelow, " Les Etats-Unis en 1863." 
 
140 SLAVERY. 
 
 bushels against 20 ; of Potatoes, 125 bushels against 113. Mas 
 sachusetts, with a cold and rocky soil, produced 16 bushels of 
 wheat per acre, Virginia only 7 ; Pennsylvania 15, Georgia 5. 
 Iowa yielded 36 bushels of oats per acre, Mississippi 12 ; 
 Ehode Island 30, North Carolina 10. Ohio returned 25 bushels 
 of rye per acre, Kentucky 11 ; Vermont 20, Tennessee 7. Con 
 necticut produced 40 bushels of Indian corn per acre, Texas, 
 with its virgin soil, 20 ; New Jersey 33, South Carolina 11. 
 New Hampshire yielded 220 bushels of potatoes per acre, 
 Maryland 75 ; Michigan 140, Alabama 60. 1 
 
 In 1849-50, the comparative productiveness of Ohio, a Free 
 State, admitted into the Union only in 1802, and of Virginia, a 
 Slave State, colonised in 1607, was as follows, in two chief articles 
 of production : Ohio, possessing 9,851,493 acres of improved 
 land in farms, yielded, with other products, 59,078,695 bushels of 
 Indian corn, and 10,454,449 pounds of tobacco, valued in total at 
 $36,769,815 ; Virginia, possessing 10,360,135 acres of improved 
 land in farms, yielded, with other products, but more limited 
 than Ohio, 35,254,319 bushels of Indian corn, and 56,803,227 
 pounds of tobacco, of the aggregate value of $25,481,358, leaving 
 a surplus, in favour of Ohio, of $11,288,457 from these two 
 products alone. The average yield in Ohio was 36 bushels of 
 Indian corn, and 730 pounds of tobacco per acre ; in Virginia, 
 18 bushels of the former, and 630 pounds of the latter. 
 
 A similar disparity exists in the average value of land. In 
 the Free States, in 1850, the average value per acre was $1047, 
 in the Slave States, $3*04. In 1855 the value per acre was 
 $1472 against 4 59. Comparing particular States, the difference 
 becomes still more striking. In 1854, 17,289,359 acres of land 
 were assessed in South Carolina, the model Slave State, as her 
 friends delight to call her, at the average value of $1*30 per acre ; 
 in New Jersey, 5,324,800 acres were valued at $2876 per acre. 
 In 1856, in New York, 30,080,000 acres were assessed at the 
 average value of 36*97 per acre; in North Carolina, 32,450,560 
 acres were valued at $3 06 per acre. In Virginia, the average 
 value of land was $8*00 per acre ; in Pennsylvania, $25*00 
 per acre. 
 
 From these comparative statements, it is quite evident that 
 the opinion long entertained by many of the most thoughtful and 
 
 1 Helper, op. cit. 65. 
 
RESOURCES OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 141 
 
 intelligent men at the South is correct, viz. that emancipation 
 will eventually more than compensate the capital invested in 
 the slaves, by the enhanced value of the land, and by the in 
 creased productiveness of the soil, owing to a better system of 
 agriculture which it would speedily induce. 1 
 
 If we examine into the relative increase of population, and 
 into the comparative wealth, of the two sections, we are still 
 struck with the depressing and baneful effect of slavery ; for the 
 Slave States presented, as we have seen, very great natural 
 advantages as inducements to settlers. 
 
 In 1790, the Free States comprised 1,968,455 inhabitants, the 
 Slave States, 1,961,372 a difference in favour of the former of 
 7,083. In 1850, the population of the latter, augmented by the 
 annexation of three foreign territories Louisiana, Florida, and 
 Texas had increased to 9,612,769 ; while that of the Free States, 
 without any such annexations, had risen to 13,238,670 ; in other 
 words, the difference in population had increased from 7,083, in 
 1790, to 4,625,901 in 1850. In the Slave States the average 
 density of population was 11 -28 per square mile, in the Free 
 States 21-93. 
 
 The aggregate value of the real and personal property in the 
 Free States, in 1850, was $4,153,575,629 ; of the Slave States, 
 including the slaves, $2,982,204,599. 2 The population of the six 
 original slave-holding States was, at the time of the adoption of 
 the Constitution, greater by more than a hundred thousand than 
 that of the seven original free States, and the wealth of the 
 former was much greater than that of the latter. But in 1850 
 the population of the former was only 4,591,645, while that of the 
 latter was 7,729,562 ; the total value of the real and personal 
 
 i Mr. Olmsted, Mr. Stirling, and others, have taken pains to ascertain the 
 comparative cost of labour in the two sections of our country, and they find that 
 free labour is not only cheaper, in view of the actual wages paid, but infinitely 
 more so when the amount and excellence of the work done by slaves and free 
 labourers are considered, the loss of labour produced by age, infirmities and 
 sickness of slaves, &c. &c. Now, as the author of the "Boston Trade Report" 
 remarks, could the South have but understood that the slaves would have done 
 more and better work if they had been paid, in the form of wages, the interest 
 upon the capital invested in them as chattels ; and if it had placed this capital in 
 railways, canals, farm-improvements, commercial and manufacturing towns, and 
 the thousand interest-paying securities represented in the North, the prosperity 
 of the Slave States could scarcely be imagined. 
 
 2 National Almanac for 1863, p. 147. 
 
142 
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 property in the former was $1,521,464,882, including the slaves, 
 while that of the Free States was $2,916,007,231. 1 
 
 A similar contrast is presented if we compare the manufac 
 turing and every other department of industry, in the two sec 
 tions, although the slave-holding States possess greater natural 
 advantages, both for manufacturing and commercial purposes. 
 
 Manufactures, 1860. 
 
 Free States. 
 
 Slave States. 
 
 No. of establishments 
 
 100 346 
 
 27 954 
 
 Capital invested 
 
 $849,025 000 
 
 $201 975 000 
 
 Raw material used 
 
 $853 935 000 
 
 $158 065 000 
 
 No of persons employed 
 
 1 181 485 
 
 203 515 
 
 Value of annual product 2 
 
 $1 616 812 000 
 
 $283 188,000 
 
 
 
 
 In 1855, the import and export trade of the Free States amounted 
 to $404,368,503, of the Slave States to $132,067,216. The exports 
 of the former were valued at $167,520, 693, of the latter, includ 
 ing cotton, at $132,007,216. The imports of the Free States were 
 estimated at $236,847,810, of the Slave States at $24,586,528. 
 The foreign commerce of New York alone was more than twice 
 as great as that of all the Slave States combined. 3 
 
 In 1854 there were 13,105 miles of railways, and 3,682 miles 
 of canals in operation in the Free States ; 4,212 miles of railways 
 and 1,116 miles of canals in operation in the Slave States. 4 
 
 Thus we see how, under the influence and exigencies of their 
 inferior labour system, the Slave States have been compelled 
 to neglect and waste their immense natural resources and 
 advantages. 
 
 The comparative value of freedom and slavery, as the basis of 
 " national life," is strikingly shown if we contrast the two States 
 which are models of these two systems respectively, Massa 
 chusetts and South Carolina. In the former we have a pure 
 democracy, in the latter an aristocracy (such as it is), based upon 
 slavery. 
 
 The population of Massachusetts in 1790, was 378,717, of 
 which none were slaves ; South Carolina had 357,567 inhabitants, 
 
 1 National Almanac, pp. 307, 328. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 323. 
 
 3 Senator Sumner s " Speech on the Barbarism of Slavery," p. 24. 
 
 4 Ibid. 
 
RESOUBCES OF NOETH AND SOUTH. 
 
 143 
 
 of whom 107,694 were slaves. But in 1860 the population of 
 Massachusetts had augmented to 1,231,066, that of South 
 Carolina to 703,708, of which 402,406 were slaves. In other 
 words, Massachusetts had gained, during seventy years, a popu 
 lation of 852,349 free men, South Carolina only 51,429. The 
 former State has a density of population of 157*82 per square 
 mile, the latter of 23 29 so greatly does slavery interfere with 
 this important element of national prosperity. 
 
 In climate and natural fertility of soil, these two States are 
 the antipodes of each other. In point of comparative salubrity, 
 also, they differ materially : the mortality from disease having 
 been in 1860, as 1 to 60 36 of the population in Massachusetts, 
 and as 1 to 77^22 in Carolina. 
 
 In 1760, the imports into Charleston were valued at $2,662,000, 
 considerably more than the imports of Boston. But in 1860-61, 
 the imports of Carolina had fallen to $806,480, those of Massa 
 chusetts had augmented to $45,399,844. The exports from 
 Carolina, in 1860-61 were valued at $5,455,581, including cotton, 
 rice and everything else ; the exports from Massachusetts, at 
 $16,572,736. 
 
 The various manufacturing establishments, mines, &c. &c., of 
 Massachusetts, in 1860 yielded a revenue of $266,001,800, and 
 furnished employment to 217,100 persons ; those of Carolina 
 yielded $7,860,594, and employed 6,800 persons. In addition 
 the product of the fisheries, in which Massachusetts is largely 
 interested, was estimated at more than $3,000,000. Unfortu 
 nately, the Census returns do not furnish data for the annual 
 revenue derived by individuals from commerce, in which Mas 
 sachusetts far exceeds Carolina. 
 
 Agricultural Statistics, 1860. 
 
 Massachusetts. 
 
 South Carolina. 
 
 Area in acres 
 
 4 992 000 
 
 1 Q Qf)K AOO 
 
 No. of acres in cultivated farms .... 
 ,, ,, non-cultivated farms . . 
 Value of farms, per acre 
 
 2,155,512 
 1,183,212 
 
 $36 88 
 
 4,572,060 
 11,623,860 
 
 ftQ AQ 
 
 , , agricultural implements, &c. . . 
 ,, live-stock 
 
 $ 3,894,998 
 13 137 748 
 
 $ 6,151,657 
 
 OQ QQO AftK 
 
 ,, animals slaughtered . 
 
 2 515 045 
 
 6079 899 
 
 ,, agricultiiral products .... 
 
 15,151,991 
 
 38,821,722 
 
 If we analyse these figures we shall get some important 
 results : 
 
144 
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 Agricultural Statistics, 1860. 
 
 Massachusetts. 
 
 South Carolina. 
 
 Value of agricultural implements, &c. per acre 
 live-stock per acre 
 
 $1-16 
 3 93 
 
 $ -37 
 1-47 
 
 ,, animals slaughtered, per acre . . 
 ,, agricultural products, ,, . . 
 
 87 
 4-53 
 
 37 
 2-39 
 
 From this table it results that South Carolina, although pre 
 eminently an agricultural country, and possessing an immense 
 annual crop of the finest cotton grown anywhere, is far surpassed 
 by Massachusetts even in respect to agriculture. 
 
 Dividing the total annual revenue acquired by the people of 
 Massachusetts exclusive of that derived from commerce and 
 trade, from scientific, literary and professional pursuits, from 
 personal property and real estate, &c. &c., in all of which the 
 inhabitants of Massachusetts are infinitely more interested than 
 those of Carolina by the total population, we find that each in 
 habitant gained, on an average, $2 3 3 38, in 1860. Making the 
 same calculation for Carolina, each of her inhabitants gained but 
 $7615. 
 
 The aggregate value of the real and personal property in Mas 
 sachusetts was $815,237,433 ; in Carolina $544,138,754, inclu 
 ding slaves. 
 
 There were in 1860, 1,195 miles of railway in operation in 
 Massachusetts, against 570 miles in Carolina. 
 
 Educational Statistics, &c. 1860-62. 
 
 Massachusetts. 
 
 South Carolina. 
 
 No. of persons from five to twenty years old 
 No. of these at the public schools .... 
 Annual expense of the public schools 
 No of ignorant native whites . 
 
 283,000 
 220,030 
 $1,610,823 
 1,055 
 26,484 
 
 15 
 
 2,000 
 709 
 19,825 
 1,462 
 684,015 
 202 
 64,820,564 
 
 114,280 
 19,132 
 $196,300 
 15,580 
 104 
 
 10 
 501 
 Not given. 
 
 > 5 
 
 26 
 107,472 
 46 
 7,145,930 
 
 
 No. of universities, colleges, professional and 
 scientific schools, &c 
 No. of students attending these . . . 
 No. of academies and private schools 
 No. of students attending these . . 
 No of public libraries (1850) 
 
 No. of volumes contained in these 
 No. of journals, periodicals, &c. published 
 Annual circulation of these 
 
 
 Of course, no count is made of the black population of 
 Carolina, in which, according to the above table, ^th of the white 
 population can neither read nor write, while in Massachusetts 
 
RESOURCES OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 145 
 
 only rh- of the population is thus ignorant. It is estimated that 
 the aggregate sum paid in Massachusetts for educational pur 
 poses, in maintaining the public schools, and in defraying the 
 expenses of private education, amounted in 1862 to $3,100,000 
 (National Almanac, p. 374). We have not enumerated the in 
 stitutions for the education of the blind, of the deaf and dumb, 
 of idiotic persons, nor the educational establishments connected 
 with the prisons and various Keforinatory Institutions of Mas 
 sachusetts. Neither have we referred to the many Institutions 
 of public lectureships in every large town of the State, nor to 
 the numerous private means set on foot for the moral and intel 
 lectual training of the people. 
 
 The value of the religious edifices in Massachusetts, in 1850, 
 was $10,504,888, in Carolina $2,181,476. In the former, 
 $263,545 were contributed to the various religious publication 
 societies, in the latter, $16,104 ; to the Society for Domestic 
 Missions $47,607 in Massachusetts, but nothing in Carolina. 
 
 The reader who is curious concerning these comparisons be 
 tween the Free and Slave-holding States will find many such in 
 the able "Letters" of the Hon. R J. Walker, on American Finances 
 and Eesources London, 1863-4; Bidgway, 169 Piccadilly. 
 For our statistics, we refer to the National Almanac and the 
 other authorities already cited. 
 
 If we compare the condition of the States which have re 
 mained true to the Union with that of the States composing the 
 Confederacy, we shall see the great material loss which the latter 
 have suffered in consequence of the refusal of a portion of the 
 Slave States to secede with them. And we shall likewise see 
 the comparative resources of the two sections now at war. 
 
 In 1860, the value of the agricultural products of the loyal 
 States was estimated at $1,065,456,252, of the Confederate States 
 at $516,546,140, leaving a balance in favour of the former of 
 $548,910,112. 
 
 Manufactures, 1860. 
 
 Loyal States. 
 
 Confederacy. 
 
 No. of establishments . . 
 
 110,274 
 $949,335,000 
 $929,391,000 
 1,274,890 
 $1,754,650,000 
 
 18,026 
 $100,665,000 
 $82,609,000 
 110,110 
 $145,350,000 
 
 Capital invested . 
 
 Raw material consumed . . . 
 
 No. of persons employed 
 
 Value of annual products .... 
 
 
146 
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 Banking Statistics, 1860. 
 
 Loyal States. 
 
 Confederacy. 
 
 Capital of Banks 
 Specie 
 
 $332,241,336 
 56,333,952 
 18,203,398 
 147,643,192 
 544,991,037 
 210,922,817 
 
 $113,124,421 
 
 27,260,585 
 1,138,123 
 59,459,285 
 142,954,543 
 42,879,112 
 
 Funds equivalent to specie . 
 
 Circulation . 
 
 Loans and discounts 
 Deposits ... 
 
 
 In 1860, there were in* operation in the loyal States 21,846.77 
 miles of railway, built at a cost of $917,134,732, and 4,607 
 miles of canals. In the Confederate States, 8,946.90 miles of 
 railway, built at a cost of 237,426,097, and 566 miles of canals. 
 
 The shipping owned in the loyal States, in 1860, amounted to 
 4,750,179 tons ; in the Confederate States, 351,797 tons. The 
 exports from the former were valued at $178,604,334 ; from the 
 latter at $178,340,776 ; the imports of the former at $315,522,166, 
 of the latter at $23,230,831. 
 
 Property, &c. I860. 1 
 
 Loyal States. 
 
 Confederacy. 
 
 Acres of improved land in farms .... 
 Casli value of farms . 
 
 105,015,314 
 
 $4 777 933 587 
 
 57,092,633 
 
 $1 870 938 920 
 
 Value of fanning implements, &c. . . . 
 . , live-stock . . 
 
 163,013,553 
 716 527,942 
 
 83,993,793 
 390 962 274 
 
 ,, animals slaughtered 
 
 131 389 352 
 
 81 542 301 
 
 ,, real estate and personal property, 
 including slaves (at $500) 
 
 10,900,758,009 
 
 5,202,166,167* 
 
 In connexion with this statement of the comparative industry 
 and resources of the two sections, the question of their respective 
 debts, and of their ability to support these charges, naturally 
 presents itself. 
 
 As to the Confederate States, we know that their natural re 
 sources are immense ; but we know, also, that these never can 
 be developed under slave labour, which it is the avowed aim and 
 intention of these States to perpetuate. We know likewise that 
 most of the States have positively refused to guarantee, indi 
 vidually, the Confederate Debt. By a report published in the 
 
 1 For statistics we have referred to the National Almanac, 1863; Helper s Book ; 
 Ellison s "Slavery and Secession in America ;" Bigelow, " LesEtats-Unis en 1863. " 
 
 2 The slaves are both producers and consumers ; and, consequently, though 
 called property, they do not economically belong to that category. If we subtract 
 this element, we shall leave to the Confederacy only $3,467,105,667 of property. 
 
RESOURCES OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 147 
 
 Richmond Examiner, Dec. 1863, the debt of the Confederacy 
 was stated to be $1,210,441,965, or more than $200 for each 
 white inhabitant of the Confederate States. Now, the National 
 Debt of Great Britain, which the British people, with all their 
 wealth, industry, energy, and resources, would be very unwilling 
 to see increased, was in the ratio of $132*61 to each inhabitant 
 of the United Kingdom in 1861, a sum very much less than 
 that which presses upon the Southern people, whose resources 
 are vastly less and more limited. In fact, the hopelessness of 
 attempting to sustain such a debt has been virtually proclaimed 
 by the Confederate Congress itself, in a manner which has called 
 forth earnest protests from leading Southern journals, and from 
 such prominent men as the Governor of Georgia, who, in his 
 recent message to the Legislature of that State, criticises the 
 late financial measures of the Congress as follows : " The com 
 pulsory funding of seven hundred millions of dollars in forty 
 days, at a less rate of interest than that pledged on full notes, 
 resembles repudiation and bad faith." 1 
 
 The effects which the secession-of the Confederate States has 
 produced upon the general prosperity of the rest of the Union 
 are among the most astounding results of the war. It was 
 predicted at the South that, as a consequence of the crisis, the 
 prosperity of the North, which was fancied to be based upon its 
 connexion with the South, would be paralysed. The result has 
 been far otherwise. 
 
 Secession has diminished the expenditures of the Post- Office 
 Department of the United States by nearly $5,000,000. The 
 value of the mechanical and manufactured products of the loyal 
 States has increased $330,227,359 in 1863, as compared with 
 1860 ; the value of their domestic exports has increased 
 $73,476,941 in 1862, as compared with 1860 ; the revenue from 
 Customs has augmented from $39,582,125, for the year ending 
 June 30, 1861, to $93,934,436 (actual and estimated) for the year 
 1864. In all departments of business, increased activity and 
 prosperity are manifest. Thus, in Philadelphia, during the first 
 four months of 1860 there were 636 buildings in process of 
 erection, against 911 during the corresponding months of 1863. 
 The book-trade is in a more nourishing condition now than it 
 ever was before secession, notwithstanding an increase of at least 
 
 1 Daily News, March 31st, 1861 
 L 2 
 
148 
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 25 per cent, in the expenses of book-making ; and the sales are 
 for cash, instead of on long credits, as was the trade with the South 
 before the war. The Keports of the Savings Banks in the five 
 principal cotton-manufacturing towns of Massachusetts, which 
 were imagined to be dependent on the South, show that the 
 number of depositors had increased 2,687, and the amount of 
 deposits $1,162,264, in 1862, as compared with 1860. The Bank 
 Commissioners of Massachusetts report, that there has been an 
 increase of 23,842 depositors, and of $5,618,235 deposits in the 
 Savings Banks, in 1862-3, as compared with 1859-60. 
 
 The Slave States, according to Vice-President Stephens, con 
 tributed less than one-fourth to the ordinary revenues of the 
 Government. The proportion of taxes to be assessed upon the 
 Confederate States, under the Tax Law of 1861, was but a trifle 
 more than one-fifth of those levied upon the loyal States, although 
 three-fifths of the slaves were rated in addition to the white 
 inhabitants. So much for the loss from secession. 
 
 As to the ability of the loyal States alone to support the debt 
 of the United States, we have the benefit of historical lights, as 
 well as the knowledge of our own resources, to guide us to a 
 conclusion. 
 
 On the 29th January, 1864, the Official Eeport of the United 
 States Debt fixed the total amount at $1,446,371,507, of which 
 $756,717,809 bore interest. The debt is, of course, daily increas 
 ing, and must increase so long as the war shall continue. But 
 taking its present amount as a basis for present calculation, and 
 comparing it with the resources of the loyal States only, we 
 arrive at the following results ; comparing together the debts of 
 England, France, and the United States in 1816, and of the 
 loyal States, in 1864 : 
 
 
 
 
 lo. 
 
 
 
 J34S 
 S^ 2 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 S2-c 
 
 Value of Real 
 
 Value of 
 
 ,5-8 
 
 
 Public Debt. 
 
 II 
 
 , 
 "22 
 
 o> oP-i 
 PH 
 
 and Personal 
 Property. 
 
 Annual 
 
 Products. 
 
 Per cent 
 of Debt 1 
 nual Pro 
 
 Great Britain 1816 
 
 $4,299,824,588 
 
 $222-79 
 
 $41-14 
 
 $10,450,000,000 
 
 
 
 
 
 France. . . 1863 
 
 2,304,000,000 
 
 61-79 
 
 9-47 
 
 
 
 
 750 000 000 
 
 
 
 United States 1791 
 1816 
 
 127,334,933 
 
 14-67 
 
 7-07 
 
 1,800,000,000 
 
 $ 454,500,000 
 
 25i 
 
 Loyal States. 1864 
 
 1,446,371,507 
 
 57-85 
 
 9-95 
 
 14,533,980,653 
 
 3,822,436,911 
 
 37-8 
 
RESOURCES OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 149 
 
 The population of the loyal States in 1864 is at least 
 25,000,000. The total property of their population increased in 
 value, from 1850 to 1860, 126 J per cent. ; in the table we have 
 estimated the increase in value from 1860 to 1864 at only 33J 
 per cent, so as to be within bounds. The annual value of those 
 products of industry alone which the Census notices, was, for 
 1860, 26 3 per cent, of the valuation of the property; we shall 
 certainly be considered as warranted to estimate the products of 
 1863-4 upon the same per-centage, as we have done in the above 
 table. But we will remark that the Census return gives a very 
 incomplete representation of the annual industrial products of 
 the country. The Census takes no note of the agricultural pro 
 ducts and domestic manufactures of our farmers consumed by 
 their families and their employes, who form almost three-fourths 
 of our total population ; again, the vast total of mechanical pro 
 ducts which individually fall below the value of $500 per annum 
 is omitted ; nor is any notice taken of the labour employed in 
 clearing and improving lands, in building and repairing rail 
 ways, canals, houses, manufactories, vessels, nor of the gains of 
 domestic and foreign trade and commerce, &c. &c. It is estimated 
 that nearly one-half of the annual yield of the country is thus 
 omitted from the Census returns. 
 
 From a comparison of the debt and resources of the loyal 
 States in 1864 with those of the United States in 1816, we cer 
 tainly have nothing to fear. The United States Debt of 1816 
 was all paid, capital and interest, in the course of eighteen years, 
 and three years afterwards there was a surplus in the Treasury 
 of $36,000,000. In two most important respects we have great 
 advantages for the payment of our debt, as compared with our 
 fathers. Our recently-established banking system, besides giving 
 us an uniform currency for the whole country, and immediately 
 interesting the whole population in the financial credit of the 
 Government, saves, by the use of United States notes, many 
 millions annually to the Government, and greatly reduces the 
 interest on the debt. Another marked advantage which we 
 possess, not only over our fathers, but also over Great Britain 
 during the years when the larger portion of her debt was accu 
 mulated, consists in the fact that, with small exceptions, the 
 money which we are expending is being expended at home, 
 and has been all raised amongst our own people, instead of 
 
150 SLAVERY. 
 
 having been borrowed abroad, as was the case with the United 
 States Government loans of 1776-1816, and spent abroad in 
 paying armies fighting in foreign lands and in subsidizing foreign 
 allies, as was the case with the large proportion of British expen 
 ditures for many years. 
 
 The confidence of the people in the loyal States in the finan 
 cial stability of the Government, and in the ability of the country 
 to support the weight of an immense debt, is shown in the 
 facility with which money has been obtained, and the rates of 
 interest paid. During the last quarter of Mr. Buchanan s 
 Administration a loan was negotiated at 11 per cent, interest; 
 in April, May, and July, of 1861, the present Secretary of the 
 Treasury sold his first loans at an average discount of 10.91 per 
 cent, at 6 per cent, interest ; later in the same year a larger loan 
 was negotiated at par, at 7f% per cent, interest ; no other loans 
 have been sold below par. The United States loans of 1799 and 
 1800 were sold at a discount of 17.29 per cent. ; those of 1813 at 
 12 and 11 75 per cent. ; those of March, 1814, at 19*86 per cent, 
 discount ; and the total discounted loans from 1799 to 4th March, 
 1861, were sold at an average discount of 12 -5 5 per cent. 
 
 The normal prices of the British 3 per cents, being 93, and 
 standing always above 89 from 1730 to 1745, they fell during 
 the Scotch Eebellion of 1745 to 76 ; at the close of the Ameri 
 can War to 54; in 1797 to 471; and during the Crimean War 
 to 851. On the other hand, the United States 6 per Cent. 
 Twenty Year Coupon Bonds stood at 89-92 in September, 1861 ; 
 at 98 in April, 1862 ; at 107J in June, 1862 ; at 100-104 
 between July and December; at 99-106^ from January to April, 
 1863 ; and at 112 } on March 26th, 1864. 
 
 We are told that the currency is enormously " inflated," and 
 that "the bubble" must collapse and scatter immense ruin over 
 the country. We can hardly expect to escape considerable 
 financial embarrassment and trouble. But, nevertheless, the 
 prospect is less dismal than some would have it. The United 
 States Currency Notes, which represent a large portion of the 
 Public Debt, and which are used by the Treasury as a medium 
 of payment in defraying the enormous war expenditures of the 
 country, amounted on the 29th January, 1864, to $689,653,698, 
 or $27.58 per loyal inhabitant, no specie being circulated. In 
 1815 the paper circulation of Great Britain amounted to 
 
RESOURCES OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 151 
 
 $706,000,000, or {37.15 per head of the population; while her 
 wealth at that time was four thousand millions of dollars less 
 than that of the loyal States of America in 1864. Yet the 
 paper-money of England, three years after its lowest depreciation 
 and after twenty years suspension of specie payments, was " as 
 good as gold." From 1852 to 1859 the average bank-note circu 
 lation of the loyal States was $146,000,000, or $00 6 per head of 
 the population and this in specie-paying times. In May, 1863, 
 the bank-note circulation of the loyal States amounted to 
 $168,400,000 or $7 per head of their population ; and it had 
 become more secure and is daily improving in this respect by 
 being based (with reference to those banks which adopt the 
 system sanctioned by Congress in 1863), not only upon private 
 capital, but also upon adequate deposits, with the Government, 
 of United States Stocks. Thus, we see that the proportional 
 amount of bank-paper to the population has really diminished, 
 and that its character has improved. And as to the Treasury 
 paper, in May, 1863, the Secretary of the Treasury was able to 
 fund it at the rate of two millions of dollars per diem. 
 
 The payment in gold of the interest on that portion of the 
 public debt which is payable in gold, is secured upon the Cus 
 toms receipts, which must be paid in specie. These receipts are 
 "set apart" for the specific objects of paying the gold-bearing 
 interest of the debt, and of purchasing for a sinking fund so 
 much of the principal of the public debt as shall amount in 
 gold, within each fiscal year, to 1 per cent, of the whole debt. 
 This source is unfailing, and, excepting for the contingency of 
 a foreign war with some great naval Power, must increase in 
 fertility with the increase of the population and the general 
 development of the country. 
 
 The great resources upon which we rely for our ability to 
 sustain any amount of indebtedness which is likely to come upon 
 us are the settlement and development of new lands, by an 
 increasing population ; the products of our mines of precious 
 metals ; and the continued progress of the old States. 
 
 In the region of the public lands belonging to the Govern 
 ment, the private property of the inhabitants increased, from 
 1850 to 1860, from $452,000,000 to $2,512,000,000, and the 
 population from 2,613,000 to 6,027,000, or 130 per cent. The 
 Government still possesses 964,901,625 acres of these lands 
 undisposed of. It is not presumptuous to anticipate that, under 
 
152 SLAVERY. 
 
 the operation of the Homestead law, and of the ordinary causes 
 which have been in operation for some years, a continued 
 development in resources and population will occur. 
 
 Again, the enormous wealth locked up in the auriferous region 
 of the United States, which comprises seventeen degrees of 
 latitude and almost as many of longitude, forming an area of 
 more than a million of square miles, cannot be easily over-esti 
 mated. It embraces, besides its great variety of mineral treasures, 
 a vast expanse of territory admirably adapted to agricultural 
 purposes. To give access to this region, and to develope its 
 capabilities, a railway, which will connect the valley of the 
 Mississippi with the Pacific, is now in process of construction. 
 
 And in the meantime the old States have, within the last ten 
 years, more than doubled the capital of their wealth, and added 
 41^ per cent, to their free population; each Census shows a 
 similar progress. 1 
 
 1 For our facts and reasoning concerning the financial condition and prospects 
 of the country, we are indebted to an admirable pamphlet on the " Debt and 
 Resources of the United States," by Dr. "William Elder, of the Treasury 
 Department : Philadelphia, 1863, 
 
ISSUES INVOLVED IN THE WAIL. 153 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 WE have finished the task which we had allotted to ourselves. 
 We have shown what are the sentiments and policy of the 
 Southern people on the question of slavery, and that these have 
 been gradually becoming more and more determined in favour 
 of that system. We have traced their schemes for acquiring 
 new slave territory at home and abroad, and for re-establishing 
 the African slave-trade ; and we have shown that the very men 
 who have been the most prominent leaders in the secession 
 movement of the Confederacy, are they who have most favoured 
 slavery extension. We have demonstrated the immense progress 
 which the Free States have made as compared with the South, 
 and that the only primary cause of the inferiority of the latter 
 is this very institution, which Southern independence was de 
 signed to perpetuate. 
 
 We believe we have proved that the States composing the 
 Southern Confederacy possessed no right of secession from the 
 Union to which they and their inhabitants owed allegiance, and 
 that they had never been subjected to any oppression which 
 would justify rebellion. We have shown beyond question that 
 the great first cause of the rebellion was the desire and determi 
 nation of the Southern leaders to uphold and perpetuate an 
 institution which they saw was remotely, though surely, endan 
 gered by the Union, under the recently inaugurated supremacy 
 of Northern sentiment. For the first time in the history of the 
 world, as the Southern Vice-President boasted, the attempt is 
 being made by a professedly Christian people, aided by their 
 religious teachers, to establish the most odious conceivable 
 despotism, by founding a civil Government based avowedly 
 upon negro slavery. 
 
 The distinctive social and political characteristics of the two 
 parties arrayed against each other in the war thus inaugurated,, 
 are so clearly marked, that there can be no hesitation as to the 
 side on which right and wrong respectively predominates. On 
 
154 ISSUES INVOLVED IN THE WAR. 
 
 one side is a well-ordered Government, " ordained and esta 
 blished to promote the general welfare, and to secure the blessings 
 of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." These results it has, 
 according to the general testimony of all mankind, accomplished 
 for its white subjects ; and it has failed in its original object of 
 securing these blessings to all, without distinction of colour, 
 only because this object has been thwarted and falsified by the 
 party now in open arms against it. On the other side, the 
 founders of the new Confederacy avow that it is based upon 
 slavery as its corner-stone ; and its mission, as declared by its 
 clerical expounders, is " to extend and perpetuate slavery." On 
 one side, we have seen that the diffusion of education, religious 
 and secular, is regarded as a prominent obligation both of 
 Governments and people, and that this duty has been nobly 
 attended to. On the other side, we find it taught that "the 
 policy which discourages the farther extension of knowledge 
 amongst the poor whites and the blacks is necessary," and that 
 " a system of common-school education is impossible." On one 
 side, labour is honoured, and industry enabled to surround itself 
 with all those means and appliances which conduce to prosperity 
 and happiness. On the other side, labour is considered as a 
 disgrace, and the poor of the land, the millions, " are condemned 
 to hopeless ignorance, poverty, and crime." On one side, free 
 dom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, are 
 natural and necessary results of political institutions and public 
 sentiment. On the other side, " Slavery is omnipresent, thought 
 is not free." In short, on the side of the Free States we find 
 accomplished, or being accomplished, all those great objects after 
 which European nations have been striving ever since the 
 middle ages ; and within the Southern Confederacy we see 
 congregated most of the social and political evils which Europe 
 has been struggling to throw off, and negro slavery in addition. 
 
 Of all people on the face of the globe the English, one would 
 have had a right a priori to suppose, would have been the last 
 to hesitate as to which was the side of right and justice 
 and duty in this matter. For the greater part of the present 
 century, opposition to African slavery has been a proud boast 
 of the English Government and people. One may even say, 
 without wish or intention to offend, that the legislation of the 
 British Government on this question has been the only unselfish 
 policy which that Government has ever pursued on any ques- 
 
I BRITISH PROTESTS AGAINST SLAVERY. 155 
 
 tion ; for it had for its object the suppression of the wrongs and 
 the alleviation of the miseries of a race not English, and not 
 inhabiting the United Kingdom. One of the chief faults which 
 England has charged, and justly, against the United States, has 
 been the support given by the latter to this odious institution. 
 Both the Government and the people of England have unceas 
 ingly protested to the Government and the people of the United 
 States against this support, as a gross violation of human rights 
 and of the principles of Christianity. A few years ago, an 
 Address, splendidly illuminated on vellum, and signed by more 
 than half a million of British women, not only of England but 
 of her dependencies, was presented to the women of America. 
 Amongst the signers were most of the noble ladies of England, 
 including the wives of probably all the ministers of the Crown. 
 These ladies acknowledged, " with grief and shame," the share 
 which England had borne in fastening slavery upon America ; 
 but, said they, " it is because we so deeply feel and so unfeign- 
 edly avow our own complicity, that we now venture to implore 
 your aid to wipe away our common crime and our common 
 dishonour." 
 
 The merits of the great chronic controversy between the 
 North and South, which finally, upon the election of Mr. Lin 
 coln to the Presidency, culminated in the present war, were 
 fully understood and recognised in England. The extracts T 
 which we have already given from "the leading journal of 
 England," prove that this great organ and guide of public 
 sentiment apprehended the issues involved as clearly as any 
 American could have done. And they show also that the 
 Times, knowing what English principles and policy had been on 
 this subject, did not doubt, then, that England would judge and 
 act as became that great nation which so loudly proclaims her 
 enlightened Christian, liberal, and anti-slavery principles. The 
 people of the Northern States did unquestionably entertain the 
 same belief. They did not expect or desire English aid in sup 
 pressing this slave-holders rebellion. But they did believe that a 
 hearty British cheer would roll over the Atlantic, bidding them 
 God-speed ; they did believe that Christian, anti-slavery England 
 would hold aloft the emblem of our common faith, as it appeared 
 of old to Constantine, and bid them fight the good fight. 
 
 But, unhappily, Governments are more frequently guided in 
 
 1 See ante, p. 61. 
 
156 CHANGE OF BRITISH SENTIMENT. 
 
 their dealings with each other by interest than by principles of 
 morality and justice. Jealousy of a growing rival, aversion to 
 democratic success, or some other petty motive which English 
 men feel, but do not care always to avow, have led the ruling- 
 classes of England and, to a certain extent, the English 
 Government to adopt a line of policy towards the belligerents 
 which has justly thrown suspicion upon the sincerity of English 
 professions concerning slavery. Even the religious bodies of 
 Great Britain have, in general, formed no exception to this rule. 
 The British branch of the Evangelical Alliance refused, a year 
 ago, to unite with its French colleagues in an expression of 
 satisfaction at the progress made in the United States towards 
 abolition. The Free Church of Scotland has shown itself 
 particularly hostile to us, nothwithstanding its former repeated 
 denunciations of the churches in America for their support or 
 toleration of slavery. When words of encouragement would 
 have been a slight, yet an acceptable, return for the substantial 
 aid 1 it had received from our churches and people in its own 
 hour of want and weakness, all its favour has been given to the 
 South. Its chief organ has declared, " We solemnly rejoice in 
 the dismemberment of the Union." Even the liberal Edinburgh 
 Review has proclaimed, that " The North has no more right to 
 force its policy upon the South, than the South has to infect 
 the North with the taint of slavery ; " this is said of a country 
 whose constitution, established by the people, ordains that the 
 majority, properly declared, shall govern. The British press, 
 with a few notable examples to the contrary, has, in criticising 
 the characters and policy of the leading men of the North, 
 from the President downwards, employed language, under the 
 cowardly shield of an incognito, which would have disgraced 
 the New York Herald in its worst days. Similar language has 
 been used by very many public speakers both in and out of 
 Parliament. An aspirant to a seat in the House of Commons 
 a man whose name is more hopeful than his political principles, 
 and who has rivalled Blackwood s Magazine in vulgar abuse of 
 
 1 "We well remember to have heard that, when the delegates sent to the United 
 States to solicit alms and aid in behalf of the infant Free Church of Scotland 
 reported that, in addition to the large sums obtained at the North, they had also 
 received contributions from the South, placards were posted upon the walls in 
 Edinburgh, demanding that the money obtained from slave-holders should be 
 returned. In those days, less than twenty years ago, opposition to slavery seems 
 to have been a principle in Scotland. 
 
REASONS FOR THE CHANGE. 157 
 
 the President of the United States declared, scarce a year ago, 
 in a speech at Maidstone, that " the cause of the Southern 
 Federation is the cause of freedom, is the cause of English 
 feeling, is the cause of constitutional Government all over the 
 world." With a few distinguished exceptions, 
 
 se rari nantes in gurgite vasto," 
 
 those members of Parliament who have expressed their senti 
 ments, have avowed themselves warm partizans of the South. 
 Alone, of all the ministry, the Foreign Secretary whose name 
 and life-long efforts in behalf of political liberty and progress 
 entitle him to be the standard-bearer of England against this 
 latest and most repulsive attempt at despotism has borne, in 
 the legislative halls of his country, a noble testimony in favour 
 of principle against selfishness. 1 In short, the only country on 
 the face of the globe, out of America, from which the " Slave 
 Republic " has met with encouragement and direct material 
 aid, is that very country whence it had the least apparent right 
 to hope for either Great Britain, from British merchants, 
 shippers, ship-builders and manufacturers, the British press, 
 the British aristocracy, the British churches. Thus, the anti- 
 slavery sentiment of Great Britain, which had hitherto been 
 regarded abroad as a great and solid fact upon which all the 
 world might lean, has come to seem, after all, to be of " such 
 stuff as dreams are made of " ; it has almost vanished before 
 the more subtle and more deeply- rooted passion of jealous 
 hostility against the United States. The mass of the British 
 people, which is considered unworthy or incompetent to share in 
 the legislation of the country, has manifested, during all this 
 American contest, an appreciation of its real causes and issues, 
 a consistent regard for British principles, and a spirit of honour 
 able patience under severe trials, which ought to shame most of 
 its hereditary and elected rulers. 
 
 The two great arguments used in England in favour of 
 Southern independence are, that thereby the power of the 
 United States will be divided one of the fragments, the 
 Southern Confederacy, becoming the friend and ally of England ; 
 and that a direct free-trade with the South will be established. 
 Let us look a moment at the merits of these considerations. 
 
 In the debate in the House of Lords, March 23, 1863, the mover, 
 
 1 Speech of Earl Russell in the House of Lords, March 23d, 1863. 
 
158 POLITICAL ALLIANCE WITH THE SOUTH. 
 
 in favour of recognising the South urged that, " Great Britain 
 requires an ally on the other side of the Atlantic, and that ally 
 the North could not furnish, not from any difference of interest 
 or feelings of antipathy as regards England/ but because the 
 United States is the offspring of a successful revolt against 
 England. Now, we venture to say that a shallower reason for 
 so important a policy, as the one proposed, was never given ; 
 and, moreover, it assumes that the Southern colonies did not 
 revolt against British supremacy, as well as the Northern. 
 
 Every one who knows anything of the state of public senti 
 ment in the United States knows that, ever since the British 
 Emancipation Act, and the declarations of the British Govern 
 ment and people against slavery in general, as indicative of a 
 settled policy, England has had no friend in the Slave States. 
 Every well-informed man knows that all the diplomatic or other 
 manifestations of hostility on the part of the United States 
 Government have been the expressions of this Southern anti- 
 English feeling, easily assuming the form of a national exhi 
 bition because the South has been supreme in the national 
 administration. Every one knows that, throughout the Free 
 States excepting amongst the Irish settlers and, perhaps, the 
 ultra-democratic German immigrants a feeling far different 
 from hostility to England pervades the people. The common 
 origin, the community of laws, literature, and religion, the 
 constant and increasing interchange of ideas and products 
 between the two nations are appreciated by the people of the 
 North, and had obliterated all those unfriendly feelings which 
 the early international wars had engendered, and had substi 
 tuted for them a feeling of amity and kinship for the English 
 people. 1 No better or more conclusive evidence of this can be 
 needed than the reception everywhere given, in the Free States, 
 to the Prince of Wales. He was there treated more like a 
 sovereign on a royal progress through his own dominions and 
 
 1 We venture to say that all observing English travellers in the Free States 
 will confirm this statement. Mr. Stirling, writing in 1856, says, "I was 
 astonished to find so little hostility to England, even among the lower order of 
 Americans ; excepting in the diatribes of some obscure Democratic paper, or the 
 spouting of some ex-rebel, or ex-revolutionist, I scarcely saw a trace of it," p. 356. 
 And as regards the public feeling of hostility to England during the Crimean 
 War, which some English journals have made so much of, Mr. Stirling says that 
 a friend of his, who happened to be in a theatre in Boston when the manager 
 came upon the stage and announced the fall of Sebastopol, assured him that the 
 whole audience arose and cheered, and demanded " God Save the Queen," p. 210. 
 
POLITICAL ALLIANCE WITH THE SOUTH. 159 
 
 amongst his own loyal subjects, than as a stranger prince amidst 
 a people over whom his fathers had once ruled. But, in the 
 first place he visited in the Slave States he was publicly 
 insulted. Even the mover of the resolution to recognise the 
 Southern confederacy, was compelled to acknowledge that the 
 Northern States had " no difference of interests or feelings of 
 antipathy as regards England." He well knew that the States 
 of the Confederacy, or their people, had both ; and that the 
 contrary professions which they have made since their rebellion 
 are assumed simply to gain English assistance, and will be 
 dropped so soon as they fail of their object, or shall be no 
 longer necessary. No sensible Englishman, who knows any 
 thing of the real sentiments of the Southern people towards 
 England, can imagine that there can be any lasting or beneficial 
 alliance between the two, unless the former be assisted to foster 
 and extend their slavery interests. But who can pretend that 
 an alliance, even if it do not involve this concession on the 
 part of England, with a mere fragment of the former Union 
 and this, as we have shown, the poorest and the least pro 
 gressive of the two sections can compare in its substantial 
 and ever-increasing benefits with that which has subsisted with 
 the entire nation ? Has not England directly and immensely 
 benefited hitherto by every event which has increased the 
 prosperity of the United States ? Is it not certain that any 
 check to that prosperity must re-act unfavourably upon Great 
 Britain ? An alliance between these is not an alliance between 
 the two Governments merely, but between the two peoples of 
 a common origin and of kindred interests. Or, if a choice must 
 be made between the North and the South, it requires no 
 prophet to foretel that an alliance with the former will be infi 
 nitely more beneficial to England than with the latter. What 
 permanent profit, what lasting friendship, can be hoped for 
 between a people which has so long and so loudly proclaimed 
 its hostility to slavery, and this new association of States which 
 have without just cause of offence, and for the sole perpe 
 tuation of negro slavery wilfully broken through all their con 
 stitutional obligations and all the ties of a common nationality? 
 By what new obligations, by what ties of interest stronger than 
 these unless by the furtherance of slavery can England hope 
 to bind the " Slave Eepublic " ? 
 
 Moreover, it is the Northern section which has the power 
 
160 FREE TRADE WITH THE SOUTH. 
 
 or, at least, the facilities, if it had the disposition and the desire 
 to disturb the peace of Great Britain, through her North 
 American possessions. Thus, an alliance with the Free States, 
 which is of direct and immediate importance to England and 
 her colonies in America, between which and them a constant 
 intercourse and commerce is carried on, and which was already 
 established on a sure foundation of respect and good feeling on 
 the part of the Northern American people, and on the immense 
 and increasing commercial and personal relations between the 
 two nations this certain alliance is endangered and well- 
 nigh sacrificed for a mere possible contingency imagined and 
 advocated by political schemers and commercial speculators. 
 
 In the second place, can the Southern Confederacy, in the 
 event of the independence of a few of its original States, aid 
 in the realization of the free-trade dream of British merchants 
 and manufacturers ? 
 
 We have seen that a tariff " for the support of Government, 
 for the discharge of the public debt, and for the encouragement 
 and protection of manufactures," was originally imposed upon 
 the United States under the lead of the South ; and that a 
 tariff for the creation of a revenue has always been a favourite 
 measure with the Slave States, and for the reasons which we 
 have explained. Will the Southern Confederacy be likely to 
 adopt a different policy now, when a public debt, far greater than 
 ever before pressed upon the whole Union, will tax the utmost 
 resources of the poorest and least progressive fragment of it? 
 We have seen that the South refused to submit to direct tax 
 ation, under the Union, on account of its oppressiveness, as 
 compared with the means of the Southern people. Will it be 
 more likely to submit thereto now that a prolonged war has 
 shattered its whole industrial system, and limited its territory to 
 the oldest and most worn-out of the Slave States ? 
 
 Moreover, Southern legislation is in the hands of the planters. 
 Is it not self-evident that these will endeavour to develope the 
 natural resources of their country, by favouring the establish 
 ment of manufacturing and mining interests and industries (the 
 need of which the war has abundantly taught), in order that 
 their own class shall not alone be compelled to support the 
 -State? And to accomplish this, will not a high-tariff system 
 be absolutely necessary ? 
 
 Again, the Confederacy will require a navy ; and how can a 
 
FREE TRADE WITH THE SOUTH. 161 
 
 navy be maintained without a commercial marine? Hence a 
 necessity will arise for the fostering of a Southern shipping 
 interest. 
 
 Thus, from every consideration, the Confederacy will be com 
 pelled, in self-defence, to resort to the same means of building 
 up its own resources of all kinds which England and every other 
 nation have employed, in their infancy, and under whose pro 
 tecting care the resources of Great Britain have become among 
 the wonders of the world. And this system of protection will 
 be especially necessary to the South, because its population is 
 more deficient in all those requisites for self-sustentation and 
 progress than any other modern civilized people, under its 
 present slavery regime. It will begin its national career under 
 the burthen of a debt of fabulous proportions, compared with its 
 resources. It must incur immense annual expenses to maintain 
 all the varied machinery of an independent government its 
 civil list, its military and naval power, its customs and post- 
 office departments, the lighting of its coasts, the maintenance of 
 its harbours, &c. &c. Of all these incumbrances, the Slave States, 
 as we have seen, bore less than one-fourth of the weight, under 
 the Union, and were, even then, comparatively retrograding 
 and absolutely impoverished. So far, then, from being able to 
 sacrifice its own interests to the advantage of British manu 
 facturers and shippers, the Confederacy must subject these to 
 stringent customs regulations ; and, in addition, it must levy 
 a tax upon all its exports of cotton and tobacco. 
 
 But, even supposing free-trade to be established, of what great 
 advantage will it be to Great Britain, to compensate for all the 
 probable losses to which British trade will be subjected, in 
 consequence of the ill-feeling or animosity engendered at the 
 North by Southern independence, gained through English con 
 nivance and aid ? We have seen the wretched condition of the 
 mass of the Southern population. We have shown that slavery, 
 while it has enriched a few thousand planters and their agents 
 and brokers, has reduced the millions to " hopeless ignorance 
 and poverty." Can we hope for improvement, when the Con 
 federacy shall have become independent upon the exclusive 
 basis of slavery, and when all the expenses of a separate govern 
 ment shall come to be borne by a reduced population, daily 
 becoming more impoverished? All the ordinary articles of 
 manufacture needed by the mass of the Southern population 
 
 M 
 
162 SLAVERY NOT YET DESTROYED. 
 
 have hitherto been furnished from the North, and must continue 
 to be sought thence, as from the nearest and cheapest market. 
 Will the small residue left to be supplied from England and all 
 Europe compensate the former for all the disadvantages of its 
 new alliance, and for the loss, or the diminished value, of its 
 hitherto best customer ? 
 
 We say nothing about the morality of the new alliance. We 
 have discussed its value upon the pound, shilling, and pence 
 standard of its British advocates. And we believe that, even 
 upon this basis, England has been made to commit a gross 
 blunder by those who have been allowed to shape its policy 
 towards the United States. 
 
 The idea is diligently disseminated that slavery is already 
 destroyed, and that if the Confederacy should become indepen 
 dent it will be as a free republic. Let not the anti-slavery men 
 of Great Britain allow themselves to be deceived by this artful 
 assurance of the Southern advocates. If only those States of the 
 Confederacy lying east of the Mississippi should become inde 
 pendent, comprising only the eastern part of Virginia, the Caro- 
 linas, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, and Mississippi, they will 
 embrace territory and population enough for a considerable State. 
 It must be borne in mind that, during the war, thousands of 
 slaves have been removed from the Border States to the cotton- 
 growing States for safety from Federal troops ; so that the slave- 
 population of the States we have named is greater now than 
 before the war, and vastly more numerous as compared with the 
 whites, whom the war has decimated. And of the 331,711 
 square miles, or 212,295,040 acres, of territory embraced within 
 those States, only some 36,000,000 acres were under cultivation 
 in 1860, leaving still untouched 176,295,000 acres an area 
 larger than that of France, England, and Wales combined. It is 
 idle, therefore, to suppose that a country so extensive as this, 
 possessing natural resources so great, capable of producing a 
 crop of cotton sufficient to keep in operation all the cotton mills 
 of the world, with a slave force larger than it ever owned before, 
 and ruled by men whose ability and energy, and whose deter 
 mination to uphold slavery, will have carried the Confederacy 
 triumphantly through the war we say it is idle to suppose that 
 such a State, if it become independent, will not live out its 
 national life as a " slave republic." Who shall say, too, that 
 the new power may not possess itself of Cuba, and thus add to 
 
CHAEGES AGAINST THE UNITED STATES. 163 
 
 its resources and its territory ? The leading men of the Confe 
 deracy have, as we know, long coveted, and frequently attempted 
 to possess themselves of, this island ; with a large military force 
 at their own command, and possessed of a navy created in British 
 ports aided, too, by disaffected planters in Cuba the possibility 
 of conquering the island would be sufficiently encouraging to 
 induce the attempt. 
 
 We say, therefore, that if the Confederate States do become 
 independent, they will constitute a " slave republic," or a slave 
 power under some other name. Any aid or encouragement from 
 England, or from Englishmen, will only contribute to the accom 
 plishment of this end, which the Southern leaders proclaimed 
 from the first to be their great object, and which they have never 
 ceased to keep in view. 
 
 It is really curious to examine some of the many charges 
 which have been brought against the United States Government 
 and the people of the Free States, in order to create an odium 
 against them in England, under cover of which the true policy, 
 which both principle and interest should have dictated to Great 
 Britain towards them, might be ignored or unheeded. 
 
 We pass over the stale slanders so often uttered against us 
 of barbarism, cruelty, and the like. Those who believe these 
 fictions, and who wish to find a refutation of the same, will find 
 them abundantly answered in the able speech of Senator 
 Surnner on Our Foreign Eelations, delivered in New York, in 
 September, 1863. We would also refer honest inquirers to the 
 reports and records of the United States Sanitary Commission 
 an association which had, up to the close of 1863, expended 
 more than a million of dollars, and seven millions worth of 
 supplies of various sorts, all voluntary contributions, in the 
 relief of the sick, the wounded, and the suffering, not only of 
 the United States military forces, but also of those of the Con^ 
 federate Government, without distinction, as well as all the 
 needy inhabitants of the South who have come within the 
 sphere of its action. 
 
 We pass over likewise the plea that England s favour is shown 
 to the " Slave Republic " because this is the weaker party in the 
 contest, and Englishmen always side with the feeble. Credat 
 Judazus. England has been fighting, in some quarter or other of 
 the globe, for a century, with some poor but brave tribe which, 
 pro aris etfocis, has contended against her armies as courageously 
 
 M2 
 
164 CHARGES AGAINST THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 as the Southerners now fight in behalf of slavery. At this 
 moment, British troops are combating with varying success 
 against some wretched tribes in New Zealand. 
 
 An assertion which British orators in and out of Parliament seem 
 to be still fond of repeating is, that the seizure of the Trent, and 
 the removal from it of the Southern Commissioners, was a wanton 
 and predetermined act of the Government of the United States, 
 and that the latter only made reparation for the act upon the 
 threats of the British Government. Now, it is well known that 
 Mr. Seward s despatch to Mr. Adams, which declared that the 
 American Government had not authorized that seizure, regretted 
 it, and was willing to make any suitable reparation for it, was 
 dated on the same day as the British demand for restitution and 
 satisfaction. But one of the prominent London journals, which 
 has the reputation of being a semi-official organ of the Premier, 
 did not hesitate at the time to invent two deliberate falsehoods 
 first, denying that the American minister had received any such 
 despatch, and, secondly, asserting that he had not communicated 
 it to the British Government. Meanwhile, the howl for war was 
 encouraged, and re-echoed, according to the journals of the time, 
 from the pulpit of at least one of the fashionable London churches. 
 
 That seizure was entirely contrary to the doctrine of the 
 United States from its origin as a nation. And the reason why 
 the Commissioners taken from the Trent were not released with 
 out waiting for the British demand for restoration was simply in 
 order that Great Britain which as a belligerent had always treated 
 neutrals ruthlessly, from seizing a whole fleet at Copenhagen, to 
 impressing seamen by hundreds from American ships should, 
 as a neutral, place on record in the archives at Washington a 
 full, formal, and official recognition of the rights of neutrals. 
 
 Another gross violation of historical truth, and of the truths 
 of English history as well, is in the attempt to fasten upon Re 
 publican Institutions the especial odium of this war, and of the 
 many evils which have accompanied it. How can any thought 
 ful and intelligent Englishman imagine that he has found in 
 English history any warrant for the assertion that Monarchism, 
 constitutional or otherwise, has been more incompatible with, or 
 less promotive of, war and lavish expenditure, of political im 
 morality and corruption, of judicial venality, of utter worthless- 
 ness and incapacity, from the highest to the lowest personages, 
 than democratic republicanism ? 
 
CHARGES AGAINST THE UNITED STATES. 165 
 
 And here we insist that it is eminently unjust to hold " the 
 American system of politics " responsible either for this war, or 
 for the train of evils which have attended it. For we have had 
 implanted and growing up in our midst, a system which is 
 diametrically opposite to ours the aristocratic, oligarchic system 
 of the Slave States which has completely ruled its own section 
 of the country, and swayed the policy of the whole nation. Like 
 an immense and baneful planet which deviates the majestic 
 march of the earth itself, this disturbing element has drawn the 
 American Constitution astray from its normal and intended orbit. 
 
 This charge against American institutions was made, in a 
 particularly marked and offensive way, by no less a personage 
 than the British Premier. In his speech soliciting from the 
 House of Commons a suitable appanage for the Prince and 
 Princess of Wales, he thought it necessary, it would seem, to 
 stimulate their loyalty and liberality by making an otherwise 
 most uncalled-for and indecorous attack upon America. He 
 told his audience of "the wide-spread misery and desolation 
 created in the West by democratic and republican institutions. 
 Our institutions," he continued, "our institutions 1 not only 
 
 1 Far be it from us to detract from the merits of British institutions. "We love 
 England, as the land of great deeds done, and of wise lessons taught, in behalf 
 of human progress ; as the cradle of our own nation, thefons et origo of our own 
 literature, laws, liberties, and religion. We well remember the feeling of almost 
 reverence which impelled us, on first setting foot upon her soil, to raise our hat 
 in salutation. We regret that Englishmen, in expressing their satisfaction with 
 their own institutions, should so generally decry those of other lands. It is in 
 no spirit of fault-finding or of controversy, but in defence of our own chosen 
 systems of politics and government, that we submit the following comparative 
 statements, from authorities which Englishmen cannot accuse of Anglophobia. 
 The first is from an interesting work on " The Social Condition and Education of 
 the People in England and Europe," by Joseph Kay, Esq. M.A. Trinity Coll. 
 Cambridge, who was appointed by the University to examine the above subject. 
 His book is made up from official statistics and reports, and from personal investi 
 gation. At the commencement of the first volume, Mr. Kay says: "If the 
 object of Government be to create an enormously wealthy class, and to raise to 
 the highest pitch the civilization of about one -fifth of the nation, while it leaves 
 nearly three-fifths sunk in the lowest depths of ignorance, hopelessness, and degra 
 dation, then the system hitherto pursued in Great Britain is perfect ; for the 
 classes of our aristocracy, our landed gentry, our merchants, manufacturers, and 
 richer tradespeople, are wealthier, more refined in their tastes, more active and 
 enterprising, more intelligent, and consequently more prosperous, than the corre 
 sponding classes of any other country in the world. "Vol. i. p. 6. 
 
 Mr. Kay sums up the result of his studies in the following words : " Here, 
 where the poor have no stake whatever in the country ; where there are no small 
 properties ; where the most frightful discrepancy exists between the richer and 
 poorer classes ; where the poor fancy they have nothing to lose and everything to 
 
166 CHARGES AGAINST THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 Confer happiness and tranquillity upon the people of these realms, 
 but enable them to enjoy the most perfect freedom of thought, 
 of speech, of writing, and action, and all undeterred by the 
 edicts of despotic authority, or the Lynch-law of an ungovernable 
 mob." Is not every candid person reminded by this effusion of 
 the Pharisee in the Temple thanking God that he is not as other 
 men, or even as these republicans ? Every Englishman must 
 know that no political institutions have passed through so many 
 revolutions as his own ; that no land, excepting France in her 
 great Eevolution, has been the theatre of such terrible mobs as 
 England ; that no English Government ever has ever hesitated, or 
 ever will hesitate, to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act, the right 
 to freedom of writing, of speech, and of action, or any other right, 
 whenever, in its judgment, the state of the country, or any par 
 ticular part of it, has required, or shall hereafter require, such 
 suspension. This was done in the last small rebellion in Ireland, 
 as the Foreign Secretary admitted ; and how thoroughly and 
 generally it was done during the English war with France, Lord 
 Macaulay has shown in his account of Mr. Pitt s administration. 
 Lynch-law is almost one of the " peculiar institutions " of the 
 Slave States, where an Abolitionist, or a suspected Abolitionist, 
 or a negro who has, in self-defence or otherwise, committed some 
 desperate act, is hung, or burned, or whipped to death. 
 
 gain from a revolution ; here, where we are stimulating the rapid increase of our 
 population by extending and steadying the base of our commercial greatness ; 
 where the majority of the operatives have no religion ; where the national religion 
 is one utterly unfitted to attract an uneducated people ; where our very freedom is 
 a danger, unless the people are taught to use and not to abuse it ; and here, too, 
 where the aristocracy is richer and more powerful than that of any other country 
 in the world ; the poor are more depressed, more pauperised, more numerous in 
 comparison with the other classes, more irreligious, and very much worse educated, 
 than the poor of any other European nation, solely excepting Russia, Turkey, South 
 Italy, Portugal, and Spain. " Vol. ii. last page. The italics are of Mr. Kay s 
 own making. This is an Englishman s picture of the results of British institu 
 tions, which Lord Palmerston praises in opposition to the democratic republican 
 institutions of the United States. 
 
 The other authority which we shall cite is the London Times, 1859, which thus 
 speaks of that portion of the United States which furnishes the best example of 
 the workings of democratic and republican institutions, because these have been 
 less affected there by the influence of Southern slavery and of foreign immigration. 
 The Times says: "No community of which we have any knowledge approaches, 
 in enlightenment and morality, to the New England States ; where, though wealth 
 is not piled up in masses," as in New York, yet poverty hardly exists, education 
 is universal, and the tone of society is singularly high-minded and liberal." 
 
 We desire no better refutation of the calumny of Lord Palmerston than is 
 afforded by the comparison of these two statements. 
 
CHARGES AGAINST THE UNITED STATES. 167 
 
 Mobs, concerning which we have been favoured with so many 
 extraordinary assertions and predictions by English journalists, 
 are almost unknown to us, excepting amongst the foreign popu 
 lation of some of our largest cities. Considering that we have 
 had no standing military force, and scarce any police, as Europeans 
 understand the expression, the almost uniform absence of lawless 
 violence, even amongst our foreign population, is wonderfully 
 suggestive of the humanising and improving effects of our insti 
 tutions upon them. 1 In their own land, most of these constituted 
 what Mr. Eoebuck would call the scum, the mob; they corne to the 
 United States, and they quickly lose their lawless propensities. 
 Why ? Because we treat them as rational and intelligent beings, 
 we acknowledge their natural rights, we give them privileges, 
 we hold out to them the sure prospect of improvement and 
 advancement, we insure freely to their children and themselves 
 the means of instruction, and they become useful and prosperous 
 members of the community. 
 
 Again, the management of our military affairs has called forth 
 a good deal of derision amongst Englishmen. But England 
 should be the last country in the world to make merry over the 
 alleged incompetency of United States officials in the conduct 
 of a great war. Her own annals are filled with what, under the 
 comparative circumstances of the two nations, are much more 
 glaring examples of real incapacity. We need only refer to 
 English accounts of the Crimean war, as the latest instance, for 
 our proofs. The vast extent of territory over which our war is 
 spread ; the immense proportions of the war ; the wildness of the 
 country, the utter absence of good roads, its capabilities of 
 defence ; the want of military experience, the size of the armies 
 to be raised and equipped, with scarce a nucleus for such forces 
 when the war began ; the character of our enemies brave, de 
 termined, fighting on the defensive on ground with which they 
 were thoroughly acquainted, possessing a body of slaves to per 
 form all the necessary work at home, while the entire white 
 
 1 There was one common trait in the natural history of the only three mobs, 
 which, so far as we remember, have made any mark upon the page of the last 
 three years ; and this common feature is not a little curious in this connexion. 
 The first, made up of Britons, occurred at Staleybridge, in England, in 1862 ; 
 the second, composed of British subjects recently landed at New York, occurred 
 in that city, in July, 1863 ; and the third, likewise made up of British subjects, 
 signalized itself at Halifax, on British ground, by rescuing from the hands of 
 the police the pirates of the Chesapeake, which they had captured during the 
 present year. 
 
168 CHARGES AGAINST THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 population has been forced to fight ; every officer from almost 
 the lowest to the highest rank, not only in the army, but in the 
 civil administration, being a slave-holder, and, consequently, per 
 sonally interested in the success of the rebellion, and accustomed 
 almost from his infancy to the blind respect and obedience of 
 all of inferior social rank ; all these considerations have been 
 overlooked by our English critics. 
 
 We are told that our armies are made up chiefly of foreigners. 
 There are, indeed, many soldiers and officers of foreign birth 
 in our armies. And why not? They are -citizens of the Ke- 
 public, as well as the natives of the land. 1 But there is scarcely 
 a family of position, education, and wealth, from Maine to Mary 
 land, from Delaware to California (besides the thousands of in 
 dustrious, respectable, and prosperous working men), which has 
 not sent its representatives to the field of battle. They are all 
 animated by a sincere love for their country, its constitution 
 and its union ; that same love of country, under the full influence 
 of which the dying Spartan boy was borne proudly homeward 
 on his bloody shield, and laid with a song of triumph on the 
 threshold of his mother s cottage ; that noble love of country 
 which prompted the stern epitaph of the gallant Brasidas : 
 " Sparta hath many a worthier son than he ; " they are our 
 Curtii, who plunge into the yawning gulf of rebellion to save 
 their fatherland. God bless them ! 
 
 We shall notice only one more charge made against us ; but 
 this is a very important one. It is said that, at the beginning 
 of the war, slavery was not at all involved as a cause or an 
 issue. The English Foreign Secretary, whose liberality we 
 honour, declared, in words which have become famous, " The 
 North is fighting for supremacy, and the South for indepen 
 dence." And so it is, or, rather, so it was : the North was 
 fighting for supremacy, and in that supremacy of the Union the 
 South clearly saw the gradual but sure overthrow of slavery, 
 and, therefore, seceded. The South is fighting for independence, 
 but it is for independence of all restraint upon the permanence 
 and extension of slavery it is for freedom to enslave. 
 
 One of the peculiarities of the United States Constitution 
 has been, very naturally, unknown or overlooked in England. 
 
 1 "We have not the proportions of natives and foreigners in our armies. But 
 Mr. Caird lately stated in the House of Commons that, being recently in Illinois, 
 he found that, in the regiments enlisted in that State (in which the foreign 
 popiilation is very large), 60 per cent, were Americans. (Daily News, March 15th.) 
 
THE REAL POLICY OF THE NORTH. 169 
 
 Englishmen reason, because the British Parliament abolished 
 slavery in the West India Islands, the American Congress can, 
 if it see fit, abolish slavery in the Southern States. But the 
 functions and powers of the two Parliaments are unequal. The - 
 British Parliament is supreme over all the realm ; the jurisdiction 
 of the United States Congress is limited by the Constitution to 
 matters which concern the general interests of the whole country. 
 Slavery is an institution local to each State, and is subject only 
 to State legislation ; only in the territories and in the district 
 of Columbia had the Congress any right to meddle with it. 
 
 The history of the United States, particularly during the last 
 seven or eight years, shows conclusively that the North has 
 been opposed to slavery, has been desirous, in every lawful way, 
 to prevent its extension, and thus gradually to overthrow it. 
 Mr. Fremont was voted for in 1856, and almost elected President, 
 simply because he and the party which supported him were 
 determined to limit slavery. Mr. Lincoln was elected upon the 
 same ground. The mere fact of his election was evidence of 
 itself that the North had determined to limit slavery under the 
 Union ; the South understood the meaning of that election, and 
 left the Union to found a new government, under which slavery 
 should be perpetual. The real meaning of Mr. Lincoln s election 
 was as well understood by intelligent men and leading journalists 
 in England, as it was either in the Northern or Southern States 
 of the Union. This is evident, as we have already remarked, 
 from the extracts we have before given from the Times. 
 
 There is one declaration of the President which has been 
 strangely misinterpreted in England, viz. that it was his duty 
 to maintain the Constitution with slavery, if this should be 
 possible, without it, if its destruction should become necessary. 
 And clearly this was his duty. He was bound by his inaugural 
 oath to uphold the Constitution as the supreme law of the land ; 
 that Constitution allowed of the existence of slavery in the 
 States, under State laws ; it was only when that institution 
 and those laws came into conflict with the supreme law which 
 the President was bound to uphold and enforce, and only to the 
 degree of that conflict, that he could be at all warranted in inter 
 fering with the institution. And so he has honestly endeavoured 
 to fulfil his duty. The more one considers the difficulties which 
 the President has had to encounter from enemies without, and 
 lukewarm friends and traitors within ; viewing the delicacy of 
 
170 THE REAL POLICY OF THE NORTH. 
 
 his position between the loyal slave-holding States and the Slave 
 States in rebellion between the necessity of conciliating the 
 constitutional rights of the former with the stern demands made 
 -upon him by the military power of the latter we say, in view 
 of these and other similar considerations,, Mr. Lincoln and his 
 government deserve immense praise for what they have thus far 
 accomplished, and for the wise and prudent and liberal measures 
 which they have adopted. 
 
 It may suit the narrow minds and the illiberal policy of 
 certain men and certain classes or parties in England and else 
 where, to sneer at Mr. Lincoln for his humble origin, and for his 
 want of what is ordinarily called a liberal education ; and to 
 speak contemptuously of the institutions of a country which has 
 placed such a man in its chief magistracy. Mr. Lincoln is a 
 man of sound sense ; of unexceptionable morality ; of undenied 
 honesty and integrity of character and purpose ; of remarkable 
 practical tact in discerning " the signs of the times ; " of clear 
 perceptions as to the extent arid limits of his official powers, 
 which he honestly wishes neither to exceed nor to come short 
 of ; and if there be any selfishness in his ambition it is only 
 that of desiring to carry out to its legitimate end the policy 
 which he has aided to inaugurate, and which, he believes, is 
 most likely to secure the permanent welfare of his country. 
 There is no European nation, however long its line of kings or 
 kaisers, which can show many of them who have possessed this 
 combination of desiderata in a ruler. Mr. Lincoln s education 
 he has acquired amidst such difficulties as none but a man of 
 original capability and strong will, accompanied by an earnest 
 desire to learn, would have surmounted; the education thus 
 gained has been gradually developed in a practical school of 
 constant expansion and promotion. And we venture to predict 
 that his name and titles, " Rail-splitter," " Bargee," Country 
 Attorney, Congressman, President of the United States, Eman 
 cipator of four millions of slaves, will be honoured in history, 
 when his detractors polished gentlemen, crafty politicians will 
 be forgotten, or remembered only to be damned. 
 
 Since the war began, and step by step with its progress, the 
 anti-slavery sentiment of the Free States has declared and mani 
 fested itself more decidedly and more actively. At first, it 
 only demanded the non-extension of slavery ; the Constitution 
 would not sanction anything more. But the armed rebellion of 
 
THE REAL POLICY OF THE NORTH. 171 
 
 the South cut the constitutional knot which philanthropists have 
 been unable to untie, and which politicians had only drawn 
 tighter. War exacted as a necessity what the Constitution 
 could not authorize as a right, and the President s proclamation 
 abolished slavery, technically, in the revolted States, leaving the 
 institution to the operation of natural and inevitable causes of 
 decay in the loyal Slave States. 
 
 And now let us enumerate the great facts by which the Free 
 States and the United States Government have exhibited their 
 anti-slavery principles : 
 
 1. The election of a President pledged to the non-extension of 
 slavery, 1860. 
 
 2. Congress abolished slavery in the district of Columbia 
 (compensating loyal owners) ; provided for the education of 
 coloured children within the district, and established within it 
 the equality of all persons before the criminal law, 1862. 
 
 3. Congress abolished slavery in all the territories of the 
 United States, " in order that freedom shall be the natural inhe 
 ritance of the inhabitants thereof for ever." 
 
 4. The assistance of the national treasury has been promised 
 to any State which shall ask it, after having enacted emancipa 
 tion laws to take effect within a certain time. 
 
 5. Great Britain has been empowered to search all vessels 
 bearing the United States flag, suspected of being engaged in 
 the slave-trade. 
 
 6. The Republics of Hayti and Liberia have been acknow 
 ledged, and their ambassadors have been received at Washington. 
 
 7. A new sanction has been given to the law against the 
 slave-trade by the execution of a convicted slave-trader. 
 
 8. The President s proclamation announcing freedom to all the 
 slaves in States in revolt, 1863. 
 
 9. The enrolment into the civil and military service of free 
 negroes and freed slaves. 
 
 Surely, never since God led the children of Israel out of 
 Egypt, has the march of a people from slavery to freedom been 
 so rapid and so certain. 
 
 It has been objected to the President s proclamation of 
 enfranchisement that it was insincere, because it limited its 
 operation to those slaves who were still in the power of their 
 masters, in States as yet unoccupied by Federal troops, while 
 those who might at any time be freed by the Union forces were 
 
172 EFFECTS OF EMANCIPATION. 
 
 left in bondage. Again, it was stigmatised as a barbarous 
 attempt to instigate a servile insurrection. This last assertion 
 was sufficiently refuted by the very circumstances of the case ; 
 for where there were no United States troops to prevent any 
 attempt at insurrection, there were Southern soldiers. But the 
 event has thus far proved that no such result has followed the 
 proclamation. 
 
 The objection as to the insincerity of the proclamation has 
 been sufficiently answered by our reference to the Constitution. 
 And, moreover, the enfranchisement of the slaves in the loyal 
 States had been provided for by the offer of compensation 
 already stated. The rapidity with which emancipation has 
 progressed and is progressing in these States is not the least 
 noteworthy event in this great struggle. The larger part of 
 Virginia, Missouri, and Louisiana have already adopted eman 
 cipation measures ; Maryland, and Tennessee, and Delaware, 
 and Arkansas have taken preliminary steps towards the same 
 great object ; Kentucky must follow rapidly. In short, in all 
 but the remote cotton-growing States, the fate of slavery is 
 already decided. 
 
 Thus we see that, long before the war, the North had begun 
 in earnest to restore to the Constitution the image of liberty 
 which its founders had impressed upon it, but which had become 
 effaced or defaced by " the greed " of Southern slave-holders, and 
 Northern sycophants and place-hunters. 
 
 The results already accomplished, and others similar, which 
 these foreshadow, could, unhappily, have been accomplished, 
 humanly speaking, only by the war. And when the work shall 
 have been completed, who shall say as so many persist in 
 proclaiming now that the war has been useless and in vain ? 
 We read the future very differently. We see the South im 
 measurably enriched by the loss of what she has hitherto con 
 sidered her peculiar blessing, her richest jewel. We see, as the 
 darkness of slavery vanishes before the dawn of a brighter day 
 (and we believe that those who have read our statements of the 
 comparative results of freedom and slavery, as exhibited at the 
 North and South respectively, will not deem the vision false or 
 supernatural) we see her population increased by the advent 
 of industrious, skilful, and hopeful labourers. We see a thriving 
 and intelligent middle-class growing up. We see the fertile 
 soil increased in value, and yielding more abounding and more 
 
PEOSPECTS OF THE FREED SLAVES. 173 
 
 varied harvests. We see her cities enlarging and multiplying, 
 and becoming the marts of commerce and the centres of manu 
 facturing industry. We see her mines yielding up their treasures. 
 We see churches and school-houses multiplying, and diffusing 
 through every home of rich and poor the advantages, the com 
 forts, the treasures, the glorious hopes which education and 
 religion alone can impart. And we see the blight and bane 
 which Southerners themselves admit had settled down upon 
 their land, expiated and removed. 
 
 As to the North, the enormous material sacrifices which the 
 war has occasioned will be amply compensated by an increased 
 and a more healthful prosperity. The blood of her children slain 
 in this most righteous cause will be recompensed in blessings. 
 The reapers will return from these fields of slaughter, bearing 
 with them, to their peaceful homes, sheaves of glory purer and 
 more enduring than that of ordinary conquerors : the curse which 
 had been concealed amidst all her material riches will have been 
 withdrawn, and her sons, chastened by sufferings, will become 
 wiser and better citizens of a more glorious republic. 
 
 And what will become of the freed slaves ? They will remain 
 where " the ignoble love of gold " of their former masters had 
 placed them. But they will remain to reap a fair reward for 
 their labour ; and, by their more cheerful and more productive 
 industry, they will aid in bringing prosperity upon the land 
 which hitherto, by a just retribution, they had cursed. 
 
 The assertion of Southerners, that the whites and the freed 
 slaves will not be able to inhabit the same country, will, by 
 the very necessities of the case, be disproved. For by whom 
 is the land to be cultivated? The poor non-slaveholding whites, 
 accustomed to regard field-labour as degrading, will not speedily 
 acquire more just views and more industrious habits. Hence 
 the freed slaves will be at least for some years to come the 
 only available labourers, and they will be by far the most 
 docile and respectful whom the planters can employ. More 
 over, the experience of other countries in which slavery has 
 been abolished, and of our own Free States, shows that the above 
 objection, always put forward in similar cases, has no real weight 
 or foundation in experience. 1 
 
 1 It is important to notice here, that the most dense negro population in the 
 country is in Maryland, and that the most dense free negro population in 
 that State is in Frederick County, which is its most populous and prosperous 
 
174 PEOSPECTS OF THE FEEED SLAVES. 
 
 The pretence that the freed slave will not work is contrary 
 not only to experience, but to nature and to common sense. The 
 common instincts of humanity are, at least, as strong in the 
 black as in the white man. Necessity will beget industry and 
 prudence, and these will create comfort and improvement. The 
 labourer, finding himself necessary to his employer, will gradually 
 learn that the latter must acknowledge and respect his rights 
 and, in turn, the planter will perceive that his own interests are 
 bound up with the welfare and the happiness of the negro. 
 Thus a sentiment of mutual dependence will spring up between 
 the two, to the advantage of both. 
 
 These are not mere speculations. It has long been known 
 that the negroes, while slaves, have worked better and more 
 profitably to the master when the prospect of reward has been 
 held before them. The slaves of a well-known planter in 
 Louisiana not only accomplished all their allotted task, but pur 
 chased their own freedom as the reward of extra work. Since 
 the war began, the freed slaves have everywhere worked as hired 
 labourers far better than they ever did as slaves. l 
 
 county. There is no complaint made by the farmers there of bad conduct on the 
 part of those negroes ; on the contrary, they are indispensable to the farmers. 
 There is double the number of free negroes to the square mile in Maryland and 
 Delaware than there is of slaves, on the average, in the whole cotton region of 
 the South ; and they are vastly more industrious and more profitable members 
 of the community, than the mass of the iion-slaveholding whites of the Slave 
 States. ("Boston Trade Eeport," pp. Ill, 112.) 
 
 1 We quote the following conclusive evidence on this point from the Eeport 
 on the Condition and Management of the Emancipated Negroes in the United 
 States," Daily News, Sept. 25th, 1863: "Mr. Frederick A. Eustis, son of 
 General Eustis, who owned the plantation on Ladies Island, South Carolina, and 
 who has returned to cultivate that plantation by hired labour, while expressing 
 the opinion that the new system of labour in Carolina is too lenient, gave the 
 following testimony as to the people now working on his own plantation : I 
 never knew, during forty years of plantation life, so little sickness. Formerly, 
 every man had a fever of some kind, and now the veriest old cripple, who did 
 nothing before, will row a boat three nights in succession to Edisto, or will pick 
 up the corn about the corn-house. There are twenty people whom I know were 
 considered worn-out and too old to work under the slave system, who are now 
 working cotton, as well as their own two acres of provisions ; and their crops 
 look very well. I have an old woman who has taken six tasks (that is, an acre 
 and a half) of cotton, and last year she would do nothing. " In short, the 
 universal testimony corresponds with the above. Captain Hooper, the acting 
 superintendent of the post at Hilton Head, having charge of some 17,000 freed 
 slaves, testified that he "never knew a case in which a coloured man had reason 
 able security for getting wages even moderate wages that he did not work. " 
 " In the city of "Washington, which contains 16,000 free negroes, these support 
 their own poor without alnishouse aid, and there is scarcely a beggar amongst 
 them." 
 
PROSPECTS OF THE FBEED SLAVES. 175 
 
 The evidence given to the United States Commissioners, 
 appointed to examine into and report upon the condition and 
 necessities of the slaves whom the war had freed, shows that 
 the latter are more willing to help themselves than are the poor 
 whites of the South. In November, 1862, General Butler was 
 giving rations to 32,000 whites, 17,000 of whom were born in 
 Great Britain, while only 10,000 negroes presented themselves 
 for similar aid ; and most of the latter were women and chil 
 dren, the able-bodied men being usually employed on abandoned 
 plantations. 
 
 The vices most common amongst the negroes are such as 
 were naturally and necessarily developed by slavery ; and there 
 is abundant evidence to show that these same vices are equally 
 prevalent amongst the poor whites of the South, whom the same 
 system has degraded and debased. 
 
 The Commissioners were struck with "the high value which the 
 freedmen in general place both on education for their children 
 and religious instruction for themselves. In Alexandria, and in 
 various other places, one of the first acts of the negroes, when 
 they found themselves free, was to establish schools at their own 
 expense ; and in every instance where schools and churches have 
 been provided for them they have shown lively gratitude and 
 the greatest eagerness to avail themselves of such opportunities 
 of improvement." 
 
 The general conclusion of the Commissioners is as follows : 
 " The observations of the Commission in the sections of country 
 visited by them, together with the evidence obtained from those 
 having most experience of freedmen, justify the conclusion that 
 the African race, as found among us, lacks no essential aptitude 
 for civilization. In general, the negro yields willingly to its 
 restraints, and enters upon its duties, not only with alacrity, but 
 with evident pride and increase of self-respect. His personal 
 rights as a freedman once recognised in law and assured in 
 practice, there is little reason to doubt that he will become a 
 useful member of the great industrial family of nations." Mean 
 time the Government is making every exertion to fulfil its share 
 of duty in carrying out the great experiment now begun ; and it 
 is aided by the benevolent and religious societies, as well as by 
 individuals, in the Free States, to secure not only the material 
 prosperity of the freedmen, but their intellectual and moral 
 training. 
 
176 EMANCIPATION IN THE WEST INDIES. 
 
 Those who oppose the abolition of slavery point triumphantly 
 to what they call the failure of the English emancipation policy 
 in the West Indies. We, on the contrary, appeal to that with 
 great confidence as an unanswerable argument in favour of the 
 substitution there made of free for slave labour. The chief 
 reason why the British experiment did not succeed as com 
 pletely as it might have succeeded, was that the short-sighted, 
 selfish policy of the planters themselves prevented complete 
 success. But, even estimated in rum and sugar the standard 
 by which that great national Act of Emancipation has always 
 been weighed by its high-minded decriers, the experiment has 
 succeeded. 
 
 In four of the five principal British West India colonies 
 Guiana, Trinidad, Barbados, and Antigua, the total average 
 annual export of sugar during the four years preceding emanci 
 pation was 187,300, OOOlbs. ; the average annual export from 
 1856 to 1860, was 265,000,0001bs. This gives an excess of 
 export, under free labour, of 77,700,0001bs. of sugar alone. The 
 total annual average of imports to these islands, from 1820 to 
 1834, was of the value of $8,840,000, against a total value of 
 $14,600,000 in 1859. If all the other articles of export were 
 included besides sugar, it is estimated that the average annual 
 balance in favour of freedom, since emancipation, would be at 
 least $15,000,000. 
 
 And it must be remembered that this increased production of 
 sugar in those four islands is due to the labour of about half the 
 number of labourers, as compared with the days of slavery ; 
 showing an improved system of agriculture, or a greater amount 
 of individual work, or both. One of the most natural and 
 legitimate results of emancipation was that every man consulted 
 his own choice or opportunities as to the employment of his 
 labour. In all the islands, but especially in Jamaica, where 
 land was abundant and cheap, very many of the freed slaves 
 betook themselves, as soon as possible, to small holdings, which 
 they purchased and cultivated for themselves thus diminish 
 ing to a very considerable extent the labour devoted to sugar- 
 culture, and diffusing it in the cultivation of numerous products 
 of comparatively small value for each, but swelling the aggregate 
 production greatly, and securing to each small proprietor inde 
 pendence, comfort, happiness, and a degree of self-respect which 
 he had never possessed before. 
 
EMANCIPATION IN THE WEST INDIES. 177 
 
 In Barbados, where labour is very abundant, the population 
 being in the ratio of one and a half inhabitant to each acre of 
 land, and where the price of land is $500 per acre, one would 
 suppose that there could be but little chance of a freed slave 
 becoming a landed proprietor. And yet, even in Barbados, 
 where the field-labourer gets but about twenty-four cents per 
 day, the number of proprietors holding less than five acres 
 has, within the last fifteen years, increased from 1,100 to 3,537. 
 Most of these were formerly slaves, then paid labourers, and 
 finally landholders. 
 
 In St. Vincent, in 1857, no less than 8,209 freedmen were 
 living in their own houses, built by themselves since emanci 
 pation. And during the last twelve years from ten to twelve 
 thousand acres of land, in holdings of from one to five acres, 
 have been brought under cultivation by these small proprietors, 
 who produce arrow-root, vegetables, &c. for export. There are 
 no paupers on the island. In the one article of arrow-root 
 alone there were exported, in 1857, l,352,2501bs. valued at 
 $750,000, against an average yearly export of 60,0001bs. before 
 emancipation. 
 
 In Granada, the small proprietors, of whom there were none 
 before emancipation, now number over 2,000, and are greatly 
 increasing; nearly 7,000 persons are living in villages built 
 since emancipation ; and there are 4,573 of these freedmen who 
 pay direct taxes. 
 
 In Trinidad, of the 11,000 negroes set free, about 4,000 re 
 mained on the estates, working at low wages. Of the remainder, 
 about five-sixths have become proprietors of from one to ten 
 acres of land each, upon which, with the aid of occasional 
 labour on estates, they make an independent support for them 
 selves and their families. 
 
 In morality there is said to be a marked improvement amongst 
 the negroes since emancipation, although the means of religious and 
 intellectual training afforded them have been disgracefully small. 
 
 The cost of free-labour as compared with slave-labour is found 
 to be less than one half, estimating the expenses of sugar-produc 
 tion under each system. 1 
 
 The condition of Jamaica since emancipation is the cheval de 
 lataille of the anti-abolitionists, who say that the sugar-interest 
 
 1 Sewell, "The Ordeal of Free Labour in the British West Indies," London, 
 1862, passim. 
 
 N 
 
178 EMANCIPATION IN THE WEST INDIES. 
 
 and, consequently, the prosperity of the island (the culture of the 
 sugar-cane being then its only interest), were ruined by emanci 
 pation. It would be nearer the truth to say that this interest 
 was almost ruined before emancipation; that this catastrophe 
 was completed by the removal of the almost -^prohibitive duties 
 on slave-grown sugars imported into England ; and that the 
 prosperity of the island, under the new and much more econo 
 mical labour system introduced by emancipation, might have 
 been revived and secured, had not the opportunity been abused 
 and disdainfully ejected by the planters. 
 
 It is well known that, long before the abolition of slavery was 
 dreamed of in England, the sugar estates of Jamaica had begun 
 to decline, owing to heavy incumbrances, want of capital, mis 
 management, extravagance, absenteeism on the part of the pro 
 prietors, who committed everything to agents at a large discount 
 of profits, &c. In 1792, the Jamaica Assembly reported that 
 within twenty years 177 estates had been sold for debt ; in 1807, 
 the same body declared that, in the five years preceding the 
 abolition of the slave-trade, 65 estates had been abandoned. In 
 1831, a convention of delegates from all the islands met in 
 Barbados to impress upon Parliament " the very urgent necessity 
 which exists for immediate and substantial relief to save them 
 from impending ruin." The relief which they sought was the 
 re-omening of the slave-trade, without which, they said, they could 
 not compete in the sugar culture with the Spanish islands, which 
 continued to enjoy that blessing. During the seven years pre 
 ceding the abolition of the slave trade, from 1801 to 1807, the 
 sugar exports of Jamaica amounted annually to an average of 
 133,000 hhds. During the seven years succeeding the abolition 
 of the slave-trade, from 1807 to 1814, the annual average was 
 118,000 hhds.; from 1814 to 1821, 110,000 hhds.; from 1821 to 
 1828, 96,000 hhds.; and from 1828 to 1835, when the Emancipa 
 tion Act took effect, the annual average was only 90,000 hhds. 
 In 1859 the export was but 28,000 hhds.; but it is evident that 
 emancipation was, at most, a remote cause of the decline. And, 
 during all those years prio r to emancipation, there was a steady 
 diminution in the population of the island. 1 
 
 After the Emancipation Act had passed the British Parliament, 
 the planters, particularly in Jamaica, instead of meeting the new 
 issues created in a fair and intelligent spirit, resolutely and 
 
 1 Sewell, passim. 
 
EMANCIPATION IN THE WEST INDIES. 179 
 
 persistently opposed the successful working of the law. They 
 were the legislators, and had full power to remedy and perfect 
 the Emancipation Act. Thinking to be able to compel the 
 freedmen to continue on their estates as before, and to labour at 
 a price very much below the market wages, the Assembly, by an 
 Ejectment Act, " gave to the planters the right to turn out the 
 enfranchised peasantry, at a week s notice, from their homes ; to 
 root up their provision-grounds, and to cut down the fruit-trees. 
 By a police-law, the ejected peasant might be arrested for trespass, 
 if he remained an hour on the estate after due notice to quit. 
 Compelled to purchase a freehold, the peasant was made to pay 
 a heavy stamp-duty on the transfer and registration of the land 
 he purchased. In slavery times, when corn was provided by the 
 masters, the import duty was 3d. per barrel ; for the freedman 
 it was raised to 3s. On rice, salt-fish, and pork, the duty was 
 augmented two or three hundred per cent. Driven from his 
 cabin on his master s estate, and compelled to build a hut for 
 himself, the customs on building materials were more than 
 doubled, and the huts were assessed at an enormous rate. An 
 excise duty was imposed on sugar, coffee, &c., raised by the 
 freedmen ; while the same articles raised by the planters for 
 export were free of duty. In like manner, a costly licence to 
 sell these articles at retail was made requisite." And a thousand 
 other like acts of legislation, intended to oppress the peasantry, 
 and to compel them to work for the planters on the terms im 
 posed by the latter, were passed. 1 
 
 But notwithstanding all these obstacles placed in the path of 
 the negroes, they have steadily improved in their material and 
 moral condition. The number of slaves liberated was 320,000. 
 The mortality amongst them since has been very large, from 
 epidemics of cholera, small-pox, &c. and from the almost utter 
 absence of medical aid, from which cause the deaths, amongst 
 children especially, are extremely numerous. But the diminu 
 tion in the population is said to be less than it was before 
 emancipation. Of these liberated slaves, at least 50,000 have 
 become holders of from two to six acres of land, and tax-payers. 
 They grow provisions for themselves and families ; they supply 
 the village markets ; they raise for sale coffee, pimento, arrow 
 root, fruits, and vegetables, and sometimes sugar-cane ; they 
 have their horses and other live stock, and are said to be "as 
 
 1 See "The West Indies," by Edward Bean Underbill. London, 1862, 
 pp. 216221. 
 
180 EMANCIPATION IN THE WEST INDIES. 
 
 independent of labour for daily wages as it is possible for any 
 peasantry to be;" many of them do devote a certain amount of 
 time to plantation work. Published statistics show that a large 
 trade has been gradually springing up in the products of these 
 small farmers, which either did not exist at all prior to emancipa 
 tion, or to an insignificant extent only. It is proved also that 
 the quantity of provisions raised by these small cultivators, 
 for domestic consumption, has been steadily increasing : thus, 
 194,455 barrels of provisions, besides 2,202 cwts. of bread and 
 83,718 bushels of corn, were imported in 1841, against 123,155 
 barrels of provisions, 3,024 cwt. of bread, and 20,704 bushels of 
 corn in 1858; the diminution in the imports during the latter 
 year having been compensated by an increased domestic produc 
 tion by the small farmers. 1 Mr. Sewell says, " There is indeed a 
 vast difference between the style of living of the free peasantry of 
 Jamaica and that of her former slaves. The people enjoy luxuries 
 now, where they had scarce common necessaries before. The 
 coffee, vegetables, and meat that are now indispensable to them, 
 they never tasted before they were emancipated. A settler with 
 an acre of land in cultivation estimates its value at 30 per 
 annum. He grows upon it, at the same time, corn, yams, cocoas, 
 plantains, bananas, tobacco, peas, ochra, coffee, and even sugar 
 cane. An acre or two will support a family of seven persons 
 in clothes and provisions, and enable the owner to save money 
 besides. I know settlers who have accumulated by this, and 
 no other means, 80, and even 100, and the sum is generally 
 devoted to the erection of improved dwellings." And this in 
 spite of great ignorance, and poor economy in labour, which 
 they have never been taught to remedy. 
 
 The Legislature does little or nothing to improve or educate 
 the people. In 1859, the Assembly voted the sum of 2,950 for 
 education, when there were 65,000 children, between the ages of 
 five and fifteen years, upon the island. 
 
 The planters still complain that the negroes will not work. 
 But the Chief Commissioner of Eoads, who has 3,000 men in 
 constant employment, assured Mr. Sewell that he could procure 
 an additional thousand at any moment ; the men, he said, pre 
 ferred breaking stones on the road to estate-labour, though the 
 former was much the severer work. These men work diligently 
 five days in the week, going to market on the sixth, or devoting 
 it to the cultivation of their own grounds. The superintendent 
 1 Sewell, op. cit. pp. 244259. 
 
EMANCIPATION IN THE WEST INDIES. 
 
 181 
 
 of the Eio Grande Copper Mines told Mr. Sewell that if he 
 wanted five men, fifteen or twenty would apply; in his ex 
 perience of eight years he has never found any difficulty in 
 getting labourers. He says, " They work harder and more per 
 sistently, I am convinced, than if they were forced to it." And 
 when the negro himself was asked, why he preferred the hard 
 work of the road, or the mine, to the easier labour of an estate, 
 he replied, " Buckra don t pay! And here lies the solution of 
 the mystery. It is the almost universal testimony that, " while 
 labourers on the road or in the mine are paid regularly once a 
 week, and full wages, those who work on estates often have to 
 go two or three months without their wages ; and sometimes 
 they lose their pay altogether." * Of course, under these circum 
 stances, it is no wonder that the freedmen prefer to work for 
 themselves, or for any one who will pay them even moderate 
 wages, rather than for the planters, most of whom pay in 
 promises, or pay badly. 
 
 We have the more recent testimony as to the willingness of 
 the blacks of Jamaica to work, of Mr. Barnes, who, in 1862, 
 began the experiment of cotton-planting in the island. He says, 
 " We commenced in December, 1862 ; and as soon as the people 
 were told what we were going to do, thirty-two men offered 
 themselves the first week ; during the next fortnight, fifty more 
 came ; and so the number increased until, at one time, including 
 men, women, and children, we had two hundred and thirty 
 persons employed, of those who were said to be only fit to eat 
 and sleep." His agent had orders to pay regularly once a week, 
 on a given day, and always in money. 
 
 The great cheapness and economy of free-labour as compared 
 with slave-labour is abundantly proved, by reference to the 
 following table : 2 
 
 Sugar Islands. 
 
 Labour 
 force. 
 
 Average of 
 Ibs. per man. 
 
 Annual cost 
 of each 
 labourer. 
 
 Cost of labour 
 per Ib. of 
 sugar made. 
 
 Cuba 
 
 120 000 
 
 4 810 
 
 $144 30 
 
 3 cents 
 
 Jamaica (slave) . . 
 
 70 000 
 
 2 286 
 
 10 00 
 
 43? 
 
 ,, (free) .... 
 
 20 000 
 
 2 500 
 
 50 00 
 
 *roi7 > 
 
 2 
 
 Trinidad ,, ... 
 
 17 000 
 
 3 823 
 
 66 00 
 
 1 72 
 
 Barbados , , 
 
 22 000 
 
 3 090 
 
 44 00 
 
 1 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 fl 
 
 1 Sewell, op. cit. pp. 284, 285, 194, et passim; also Mr. Underbill s book. 
 
 2 Sewell, op. cit. pp. 260 276. The reason why the average production per 
 labourer is greater In Cuba is, because in CubJftKe slave is made to work four or 
 five hours longer each day than the freedmen of the other islands, and at least 
 two days more of each week. 
 
182 EMANCIPATION IN THE WEST INDIES. 
 
 The present Governor of Jamaica gives the following as the 
 result of emancipation upon the condition and prospects of the 
 negro population of the island : " The proportion of those who 
 are settling themselves industriously on their own holdings, 
 and rapidly rising in the social scale, and some of whom are, 
 to a limited extent, themselves the employers of hired labour, 
 which they pay for either in money or in kind, is not only 
 steadily increasing, but is at the present moment far more 
 extensive than was anticipated by those who are aware of all 
 that took place in this colony in the early days of negro free 
 dom. There can be no doubt, in fact, that an independent, 
 respectable, and trustworthy middle class is rapidly forming. 
 . . . Jamaica at this moment presents at once the strongest 
 proof of the complete success of the great measure of 
 emancipation, as relates to the capacity of the negro race for 
 freedom, and the most unfortunate instance of a descent in 
 the scale of agricultural and commercial importance as a 
 colonial community." * 
 
 The causes of the agricultural and commercial decline, besides 
 those to which we have alluded, are the competition which 
 Cuba presented, under very favourable circumstances, in the 
 production of sugar ; the restrictions imposed by Great Britain 
 upon commercial intercourse with the United States ; the rapid 
 commercial growth of the latter, whereby Jamaica lost the 
 prominent position and advantage she once possessed as a 
 depot of trade between Europe and the Spanish Main, &c. &c. 
 All these circumstances are explained by Mr. Sewell, to whose 
 work, and to that of Mr. Underbill, as being the two most 
 recent, we refer for much interesting information concerning the 
 results and failings of emancipation. 
 
 The experience of the French West India Islands, so far as 
 the progress made since emancipation is concerned, agrees with 
 that afforded by the British Islands. An official report states 
 that " Emancipation has impelled one portion of the slaves 
 towards the towns, another towards the unoccupied lands, very 
 few towards the prisons and hospitals. It has made artisans 
 and small freeholders, some vagrants, few beggars, and few 
 criminals." 2 
 
 Emancipation was declared in the French colonies in 1848 ; 
 the importation of coolies did not begin to effect its results until 
 
 1 Underbill, op. cit. p. 438. 
 
 3 Quoted in the " Boston Trade Report," 1863, p. 113. 
 
EMANCIPATION IN THE WEST INDIES. 
 
 183 
 
 after 1857. The following tables exhibit the movements of the 
 trade of those colonies : l 
 
 Islands. 
 
 QUINQUENNIAL 
 
 AVERAGE OF EXPORT 
 
 3 AND IMPORTS. 
 
 
 1843 to 1847. 
 
 1848 to 1852. 
 
 1853 to 1857. 
 
 Martinique . . . 
 Guadaloupe . . . 
 Guiane . 
 
 frs. 39,226,503 
 39,226,912 
 4,081,799 
 
 frs. 36,676,505 
 28,641,649 
 4 427 460 
 
 frs. 51,546,959 
 39,904,671 
 7 954 376 
 
 Bourbon .... 
 
 33,074,648 
 
 34,708,672 
 
 72,324,705 
 
 Total . . . 
 
 frs. 115,609,862 
 
 frs. 104,454,286 
 
 frs.171,730,711 
 
 This shows an average gain, in the last five years, of 56,120,849 
 francs over the average of the five years preceding emancipation. 
 In 1847, these colonies employed 2,022 vessels of all kinds in 
 a total transportation of 115,694,170 francs of freight; in 1857, 
 2,488 vessels, in a transportation of 166,057,692 francs ; in 1859, 
 3,342 vessels, in a transportation of 172,355,614 francs of freight. 
 In exports alone the comparison stands : 
 
 Martinique, in 1847 
 Guadaloupe, ,, 
 Guiane ,, 
 
 Bourbon 
 
 frs. 18,323,921 
 
 20,420,522 
 
 1,622,919 
 
 12,620,602 
 
 in 1857 
 
 frs. 24,830,093 
 
 23,319,277 
 
 961,272 
 
 33,130,125 
 
 Thus from all quarters from the experience of the Southern 
 Slave States themselves, where the experiment is being tried 
 on a small scale as yet, and amidst all the distraction and tur 
 moil of the war, as well as from the West India .Islands the 
 encouragement is very great. We conceive that there can be no 
 doubt as to the result at home, so far as the good conduct and 
 desire to improve of the negro are concerned ; for the slaves of 
 our Southern States are farther removed from pure African than 
 were those of the West Indies at the time of the emancipation, 
 the slave-trade having been longer abolished with us ; and we 
 believe, too, that our negroes have been treated, on the whole, 
 with more mildness, and that they are more intelligent, docile, 
 and educable. Moreover, the military training, which so many 
 of them are receiving, will temper and perfect the education 
 which they have acquired in the school of expectancy, in which 
 they seem to have been awaiting their freedom. 
 
 We believe, also, that the whites will receive and adapt them 
 selves to the new order of things with more willingness than 
 
 1 Quoted in the " Boston Trade Report," p. 112. 
 
184 EMANCIPATION IN THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 did the planters of the West Indies. The rapidity of the pro 
 gress of emancipation in the Border States, and the comparative 
 alacrity with which it has been received even in Louisiana and 
 Arkansas, warrant us in indulging that belief. Capital, and 
 energy, and goodwill will not be wanting, as they were in the 
 British islands, to favour the success of the experiment. If the 
 original planters of the South should fail, either from pride or 
 from ignorance, hundreds of Northern farmers will take their 
 places, as, indeed, they are already doing, and will bring wealth, 
 zeal, enterprise, and skill to aid in regenerating the country. 
 And among the mass of the Southern people who have never 
 been slave-holders, but who have been kept depressed and im 
 poverished by slavery, will gradually spring up a knowledge 
 of their own interests and a desire to secure them, which will 
 complete the great work, and place the Union upon a better 
 and a more solid basis than it has ever had before. 
 
 "Slavery once overthrown," says an eloquent and accom 
 plished French writer in the Revue des Deux Mondes, " the field 
 will be left open to the operation of that spirit of enterprise 
 which has made the New England States so justly admired by 
 the friends of civilization. Then will the Tree of Liberty pro 
 duce abundantly its fruits ; and the world will see what a 
 Eepublic truly democratic can accomplish in science, in art, and 
 in social economy, when it shall be once fairly engaged in the 
 elaboration of all sorts of improvements, with that persevering 
 energy which characterizes the American mind. What Liberty 
 has already accomplished in the New England States, it will 
 secure, we doubt not, throughout all that vast Anglo-Saxon 
 Eepublic, when the crime of slavery shall have been expiated, 
 and when the slave, freed from his chains, shall grasp as a 
 friend s the hand of his former master." 
 
 We believe that the great mass of the English people would 
 hail with joy this glorious consummation. We are persuaded 
 that the true interests of England would be immeasurably 
 advanced by such a regeneration of the great American Union ; 
 not by an illusory promise of free-trade with an independent 
 " Slave Eepublic," nor by a political alliance, at once illusory 
 and disgraceful. 
 
 LONDON : K. CLAY, SON, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS, BREAD STREET HILL. 
 
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