# An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans/Chapter 4

CHAPTER IV.
INFLUENCE OF SLAVERY ON THE POLITICS OF THE UNITED STATES.
Casca.I believe these are portentous things Unto the climate that they point upon.
Cicero.Indeed it is a strange disposed time: But men may construe things after their fashion, Clean from the purpose of the things themselves. Julius Cæsar
When slave representation was admitted into the Constitution of the United States, a wedge was introduced, which has ever since effectually sundered the sympathies and interests of different portions of the country. By this step, the slave States acquired an undue advantage, which they have maintained with anxious jealousy, and in which the free States have never perfectly acquiesced. The latter would probably never have made the concession, so contrary to their principles, and the express provisions of their State constitutions, if powerful motives had not been offered by the South. These consisted, first, in taking upon themselves a proportion of direct taxes, increased in the same ratio as their representation was increased by the concession to their slaves.
Second.—In conceding to the small States an entire equality in the Senate. This was not indeed proposed as an item of the adjustment, but it operated as such; for the small States, with the exception of Georgia, (which in fact expected to become one of the largest,) lay in the North, and were either free, or likely soon to become so.
During most of the contest, Massachusetts, then one of the large States, voted with Virginia and Pennsylvania for unequal representation in the Senate; but on the final question she was divided, and gave no vote. There ​was probably an increasing tendency to view this part of the compromise not merely as a concession of the large to the small States, but also of the largely slave-holding, to the free, or slightly slave-holding States. The two questions of direct taxes in proportion to slave representation, and of perfect equality in the Senate, were always connected together; and a large committee of compromise, consisting of one member from each State, expressly recommended that both provisions should be adopted, but neither of them without the other.
Such were the equivalents, directly or indirectly offered, by which the free States were induced to consent to slave representation. It was not without very considerable struggles that they overcame their repugnance to admitting such a principle in the construction of a republican government. Mr Gerry, of Massachusetts, at first exclaimed against it with evident horror, but at last, he was chairman of the committee of compromise. Even the slave States themselves, seem to have been a little embarrassed with the discordant element. A curious proof of this is given in the language of the Constitution. The ugly feature is covered as cautiously as the deformed visage of the Veiled Prophet. The words are as follows: "Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the States according to their respective numbers; which shall be ascertained by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to servitude for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other persons." In this most elaborate sentence, a foreigner would discern no slavery. None but those who already knew the venomous serpent, would be able to discover its sting.
Governor Wright, of Maryland, a contemporary of all these transactions, and a slave holder, after delivering a eulogy upon the kindness of masters expressed himself as follows: "The Constitution guaranties to us the services of these persons. It does not say slaves; for the ​feelings of the framers of that glorious instrument would not suffer them to use that word, on account of its anti-congeniality—its incongeniality to the idea of a constitution for freemen. It says, 'persons held to service, or labor.'"—Gov. Wright's Speech in Congress, March, 1822.
This high praise bestowed on the form of our constitution, reminds me of an anecdote. A clergyman in a neighboring State, being obliged to be absent from his parish, procured a young man to supply his place, who was very worldly in his inclinations, and very gay in his manners. When the minister returned, his people said somewhat reproachfully, "How could you provide such a man to preach for us; you might at least have left us a hypocrite."
While all parties agreed to act in opposition to the principles of justice, they all concurred to pay homage to them by hypocrisy of language! Men are willing to try all means to appear honest, except the simple experiment of being so. It is true, there were individuals who distrusted this compromise at the time, if they did not wholly disapprove of it. It is said that Washington, as he was walking thoughtfully near the Schuylkill, was met by a member of the Convention, to whom, in the course of conversation, he acknowledged that he was meditating whether it would not be better to separate, without proposing a constitution to the people; for he was in great doubt whether the frame of government, which was now nearly completed, would be better for them, than to trust to the course of events, and await future emergencies.
This anecdote was derived from an authentic source, and I have no doubt of its truth; neither is there any doubt that Washington had in his mind this great compromise, the pivot on which the system of government was to turn.
If avarice was induced to shake hands with injustice, from the expectation of increased direct taxation upon the South, she gained little by the bargain. With the exception of two brief periods, during the French war, and the last war with England, the revenue of the ​United States has been raised by duties on imports.—The heavy debts and expenditures of the several States, which they had been accustomed to provide for by direct taxes, and which they probably expected to see provided for by the same means in time to come, have been all paid by duties on imports. The greatest proportion of these duties are, of course, paid by the free States; for here, the poorest laborer daily consumes several articles of foreign production, of which from one eighth to one half the price is a tax paid to government. The clothing of the slave population increases the revenue very little, and their food almost none at all.
Wherever free labor and slave labor exist under the same government, there must be a perpetual clashing of interests. The legislation required for one, is, in its spirit and maxims, diametrically opposed to that required for the other. Hence Mr Madison predicted, in the convention, which formed our Federal Constitution, that the contests would be between the great geographical sections; that such had been the division, even during, the war and the confederacy.
In the same convention, Charles Pinckney, a man of great sagacity, spoke of the equal representation of large and small States as a matter of slight consequence; no difficulties would ever arise on that point, he said; the question would always be between the slave-holding and non-slave-holding interests.
If the pressure of common danger, and the sense of individual weakness, during our contest for independence, could not bring the States to mutual confidence, nothing ever can do it, except a change of character.—From the adoption of the constitution to the present time, the breach has been gradufdly widening. The South has pursued a uniform and sagacious system of policy, which, in all its bearings, direct and indirect, has been framed for the preservation and extension of slave power. This system, has in the very nature of the two things, constantly interfered with the interests of the free States; and hitherto the South have always gained the victory. This has principally been accomplished by yoking all important questions together in pairs, and strenuously resisting the passage of one, unless accompanied by the ​other. The South was desirous of removing the seat of government from Philadelphia to Washington, because the latter is in a slave territory, where republican representatives and magistrates can bring their slaves without danger of losing them, or having them contaminated by the principles of universal liberty: The assumption of the State debts, likely to bring considerable money back to the North, was linked with this question, and both were carried. The admission of Maine into the Union as a free State, and of Missouri as a slave State, were two more of these Siamese twins, not allowed to be separated from each other. A numerous smaller progeny may be found in the laying of imposts, and the successive adjustment of protection to navigation, the fisheries, agriculture, and manufactures.
There would perhaps be no harm in this system of compromises, or any objection to its continuing in infinite series, if no injustice were done to a third party, which is never heard or noticed, except for purposes of oppression.
I reverence the wisdom of our early legislators; but they certainly did very wrong to admit slavery as an element into a free constitution; and to sacrifice the known and declared rights of a third and weaker party, in order to cement a union between two stronger ones. Such an arrangement ought not, and could not, come to good. It has given the slave States a controlling power which they will always keep, so long as we remain together.
President John Adams was of opinion, that this ascendency might be attributed to an early mistake, originating in what he called the "Frankford advice." When the first Congress was summoned in Philadelphia, Doctor Rush, and two or three other eminent men of Pennsylvania, met the Massachusetts delegates at Frankford, a few miles from Philadelphia, and conjured them, as they valued the success of the common cause, to let no measure of importance appear to originate with the North, to yield precedence in all things to Virginia, and lead her if possible to commit herself to the Revolution. Above all, they begged that not a word might be said about "independence;" for that a strong prejudice ​already existed against the delegates from New England, on account of a supposed design to throw off their allegiance to the mother country. "The Frankford advice" was followed. The delegates from Virginia took the lead on all occasions.
His son, John Q. Adams, finds a more substantial reason. In his speech on the Tariff, February 4, 1833, he said: "Not three days since, Mr Clayton of Georgia, called that species of population (viz. slaves) the machinery of the South. Now that machinery had twenty odd representatives in that hall,—not elected by the machinery, but by those who owned it. And if he should go back to the history of this government from its foundation, it would be easy to prove that its decisions had been effected, in general, by less majorities than that. Nay, he might go farther, and insist that that very representation had ever been, in fact, the ruling power of this government."
"The history of the Union has afforded a continual proof that this representation of property, which they enjoy, as well in the election of President and Vice President of the United States, as upon the floor of the House of Representatives, has secured to the slave-holding States the entire control of the national policy, and, almost without exception, the possession of the highest executive office of the Union. Always united in the purpose of regulating the affairs of the whole Union by the standard of the slave-holding interest, their disproportionate numbers in the electoral colleges have enabled them, in ten out of twelve quadrennial elections, to confer the Chief Magistracy upon one of their own citizens.—Their suffrages at every election, without exception, have been almost exclusively confined to a candidate of their own caste. Availing themselves of the divisions which, from the nature of man, always prevail in communities entirely free, they have sought and found auxiliaries in the other quarters of the Union, by associating the passions of parties, and the ambition of individuals, with their own purposes, to establish and maintain throughout the confederated nation the slave-holding policy. The ​office of Vice President, a station of high dignity, but of little other than contingent power, had been usually, by their indulgence, conceded to a citizen of the other section; but even this political courtesy was superseded at the election before the last, and both the offices of President and Vice President of the United States were, by the preponderancy of slave-holding votes, bestowed upon citizens of two adjoining and both slave-holding States. At this moment the President of the United States, the President of the Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and the Chief Justice of the United States, are all citizens of that favored portion of the united republic. The last of these offices, being, under the constitution, held by the tenure of good behaviour, has been honored and dignified by the occupation of the present incumbent upwards of thirty years. An overruling sense of the high responsibilities under which it is held, has effectually guarded him from permitting the sectional slave-holding spirit to ascend the tribunal of justice; and it is not difficult to discern, in this inflexible impartiality, the source of the obloquy which that same spirit has not been inactive in attempting to excite against the Supreme Court of the United States itself; and of the insuperable aversion of the votaries of nullification to encounter or abide by the decision of that tribunal, the true and legitimate umpire of constitutional, controverted law."
It is worthy of observation that this slave representation is always used to protect and extend slave power; and in this way, the slaves themselves are made to vote for slavery: they are compelled to furnish halters to hang their posterity.
Machiavel says that "the whole politics of rival states consist in checking the growth of one another." It is sufficiently obvious, that the slave and free States are, and must be, rivals, owing to the inevitable contradiction of their interests. It needed no Machiavel to predict the result. A continual strife has been going on, more or less earnest, according to the nature of the interests it involved, and the South has always had strength and ​skill to carry her point. Of all our Presidents, Washington alone, had power to keep the jealousies of his countrymen in check; and he used his influence nobly.—Some of his successors have cherished those jealousies, and made effective use of them.
The people of the North have to manage a rocky and reluctant soil; hence commerce and the fisheries early attracted their attention. The products of these employments were, as they should be, proportioned to the dexterity and hard labor required in their pursuit. The North grew opulent; and her politicians, who came in contact with those of the South with anything like rival pretensions, represented the commercial class, which was the nucleus of the old Federal party.
The Southerners have a genial climate and a fertile soil; but in consequence of the cumbrous machinery of slave labor, which is slow for everything, (except exhausting the soil,) they have always been less prosperous than the free States. It is said, I know not with how much truth, but it is certainly very credible, that a great proportion of their plantations are deeply mortgaged in New York and Philadelphia. It is likewise said that the expenses of the planters are generally one or two years in advance of their income. Whether these statements be true or not, the most casual observer will decide, that the free States are uniformly the most prosperous, notwithstanding the South possesses a political power, by which she manages to check-mate us at every important move. When we add this to the original jealousy spoken of by Mr Madison, it is not wonderful that Southern politicians take so little pains to conceal their strong dislike of the North.
A striking difference of manners, also caused by slavery, serves to aggravate other differences. Slave holders have the habit of command; and from the superior ease with which it sits upon them, they seem to imagine that they were "born to command," and we to obey. In time of war, they tauntingly told us that we might furnish the men, and they would furnish the officers; but in time of peace they find our list of pensioners so large, they complain that we did furnish so many men.
​At the North, every body is busy in some employment, and politics, with very few exceptions, form but a brief episode in the lives of the citizens. But the Southern politicians are men of leisure. They have nothing to do but to ride round their plantations, hunt, attend the races, study politics for the next legislative or congressional campaign, and decide how to use the prodigious mechanical power, of slave representation, which a political Archimedes may effectually wield for the destruction of commerce, or anything else, involving the prosperity of the free States.
It has been already said, that most of the wealth in New England was made by commerce; consequently the South became unfriendly to commerce. There was a class in New England, jealous, and not without reason, of their own commercial aristocracy. It was the policy of the South to foment these passions, and increase these prejudices. Thus was the old Democratic party formed; and while that party honestly supposed they were merely resisting the encroachments of a nobility at home, they were actually playing a game for one of the most aristocratic classes in the world—viz. the Southern planters. A famous slaveowner and politician, openly boasted, that the South could always put down the aristocracy of the North, by means of her own democracy. In this point of view, democracy becomes a machine used by one aristocratic class against another, that has less power, and is therefore less dangerous.
There are features in the organization of society, resulting from slavery, which are conducive to anything but the union of these States. A large class are without employment, are accustomed to command, and have a strong contempt for habits of industry. This class, like the nobility of feudal times, are restless, impetuous, eager for excitement, and prompt to settle all questions with the sword. Like the fierce old barons, at the head of their vassals, they are ever ready to resist and nullify the central power of the State, whenever it interferes with their individual interests, or even approaches the strong holds of their prejudices. All history shows, that men possessing hereditary, despotic power, cannot easily be brought ​to acknowledge a superior, either in the administrators of the laws, or in the law itself. It was precisely such a class of men that covered Europe with camps, for upwards of ten centuries.
A Southern governor has dignified duelling with the name of an "institution"; and the planters generally, seem to regard it as among those which they have denominated their "peculiar institutions." General Wilkinson, who was the son of a slave owner, expresses in his memoirs, great abhorrence of duelling, and laments the powerful influence which his father's injunction, when a boy, had upon his after life: "James," said the old gentleman, "if you ever take an insult, I will disinherit you."
A young lawyer, who went from Massachusetts to reside at the South, has frequently declared that he could not take any stand there as a lawyer, or a gentleman, until he had fought: he was subject to continual insult and degradation, until he had evinced his readiness to kill, or be killed. It is obvious that such a state of morals elevates mere physical courage into a most undue importance. There are indeed emergencies, when all the virtues, and all the best affections of man, are intertwined with personal bravery; but this is not the kind of courage, which makes duelling in fashion. The patriot nobly sacrifices himself for the good of others; the duellist wantonly sacrifices others to himself.
Brow-beating, which is the pioneer of the pistol, characterizes, particularly of late years, the Southern legislation. By these means, they seek to overawe the Representatives from the free States, whenever any question even remotely connected with slavery is about to be discussed; and this, united with our strong reverence for the Union, has made our legislators shamefully cautious with regard to a subject, which peculiarly demands moral courage, and an abandonment of selfish considerations. If a member of Congress does stand his ground firmly, if he wants no preferment or profit, which the all powerful Southern influence can give, an effort is then made to intimidate him. The instances are numerous in which Northern men have been insulted and challenged by their Southern brethren, in consequence of the adverse ​influence they exerted over the measures of the Federal government. This turbulent evil exists only in our slave States; and the peace of the country is committed to their hands whenever twentyfive votes in Congress can turn the scale in favor of war.
​It is true, agriculture suffered as well as commerce; but agricultural products could be converted into food and clothing; they would not decay like ships, nor would the producers be deprived of employment and sustenance, like those connected with navigation.
Whether this step was intended to paralyze the North or not, it most suddenly and decidedly produced that effect. We were told that it was done to save our commerce from falling into the hands of the English and French. But our merchants earnestly entreated not to be thus saved. At the very moment of the embargo, underwriters were ready to insure at the usual rates.
The non-intercourse was of the same general character as the embargo, but less offensive and injurious. The war crowned this course of policy; and like the other measures, was carried by slave votes. It was emphatically a Southern, not a national war. Individuals gained glory by it, and many of them nobly deserved it; but the amount of benefit which the country derived from that war might be told in much fewer words than would enumerate the mischiefs it produced.
The commercial States, particularly New England, have been frequently reproached for not being willing to go to war for the protection of their own interests; and have been charged with pusillanimity and ingratitude for not warmly seconding those who were so zealous to defend their cause. Mr Hayne, during the great debate with Mr Webster, in the Senate, made use of this customary sarcasm. It is revived whenever the sectional spirit of the South, or party spirit in the North, prompts individuals to depreciate the talents and character of any eminent Northern man. The Southern States have even gone so far on this subject, as to assume the designation of "patriot States," in contra-distinction to their northern neighbors—and this too, while Bunker Hill and Faneuil Hall are still standing! It certainly was a pleasant idea to exchange the appellation of slave States for that of patriot States—it removed a word which in a republic is unseemly and inconsistent.
Whatever may be thought of the justice and expediency of the last war, it was certainly undertaken against ​the earnest wishes of the commercial States—two thirds of the Representatives from those States voted in opposition to the measure. According to the spirit of the constitution it ought not to have passed unless there were two thirds in favor of it. Why then should the South have insisted upon conferring a boon, which was not wanted; and how happened it, that Yankees, with all their acknowledged shrewdness in money matters, could never to this day perceive how they were protected by it? Yet New England is reproached with cowardice and ingratitude to her Southern benefactors! If one man were to knock another down with a broad axe, in the attempt to brush a fly from his face, and then blame him for not being sufficiently thankful, it would exactly illustrate the relation between the North and the South on this subject.
If the protection of commerce had been the real object of the war, would not some preparations have been made for a navy? It was ever the policy of the slave States to destroy the navy. Vast conquests by land were contemplated, for the protection of Northern commerce. Whatever was intended, the work of destruction was done. The policy of the South stood for a while like a giant among ruins. New England received a blow, which crushed her energies, but could not annihilate them. Where the system of free labor prevails, and there is work of any kind to be done, there is a safety valve provided for any pressure. In such a community there is a vital and active principle, which cannot be long repressed. You may dam up the busy waters, but they will sweep away obstructions, or force a new channel.
​New England seems to be like the poor lamb that tried to drink at the same stream with the wolf. "You make the water so muddy I can't drink," says the wolf: "I stand below you," replied the lamb, "and therefore it cannot be." "You did me an injury last year," retorted the wolf "I was not born last year," rejoined the lamb. "Well, well," exclaimed the wolf, "then it was your father or mother. I'll eat you, at all events."
The bitter discussions in Congress have grown out of this strong dislike to the free States; and the crown of the whole policy is nullification. The single state of South Carolina has undertaken to abolish the revenues of the whole nation; and threatened the Federal Government with secession from the Union, in case the laws were enforced by any other means than through the judicial tribunals.
"South Carolina has the privilege of excessive representation, and is released from the payment of direct taxes, which, according to the ratio of her representation, would be nearly double that of any non-slave-holding State; it is therefore not a little extraordinary that she should complain of an unequal proportion of duties of imposts.
"It is not a little extraordinary that this new pretension of South Carolina, the State which above all others enjoys this unrequited privilege of excessive representation, released from all payment of the direct taxes, of which her proportion would be nearly double that of any non-slave-holding State, should proceed from that very complaint that she bears an unequal proportion of duties of imposts, which, by the constitution of the United States, are required to be uniform throughout the Union. Vermont, with a free population of two hundred and eighty thousand souls, has five representatives in the popular House of Congress, and seven Electors for President and Vice President. South Carolina, with a free population of less than two hundred and sixty thousand souls, sends nine members to the House of Representatives, and honors the Governor of Virginia with eleven votes for the office of President of the United States. If the rule of representation were the same for South Carolina and for Vermont, they would have the same number of ​Representatives in the House, and the same number of Electors for the choice of President and Vice President. She has nearly double the number of both."
What would the South have? They took the management at the very threshold of our government, and, excepting the rigidly just administration of Washington, they have kept it ever since. They claimed slave representation, and obtained it. For their convenience the revenues were raised by imposts instead of direct taxes, and thus they give little or nothing in exchange for their excessive representation. They have increased the slave States, till they have twentyfive votes in Congress—They have laid the embargo, and declared war—They have controlled the expenditures of the nation—They have acquired Louisiana and Florida for an eternal slave market, and perchance for the manufactory of more slave States—They have given five presidents out of seven to the United States—And in their attack upon manufactures, they have gained Mr Clay's concession bill. "But all this availeth not, so long as Mordecai the Jew sitteth in the king's gate." The free States must be kept down. But change their policy as they will, free States cannot be kept down. There is but one way to ruin them; and that is to make them slave States. If the South with all her power and skill cannot manage herself into prosperity, it is because the difficulty lies at her own doors, and she will not remove it. At one time her deserted villages were attributed to the undue patronage bestowed upon settlers on the public lands; at another, the tariff is the cause of her desolation. Slavery, the real root of the evil, is carefully kept out of sight, as a "delicate subject," which must not be alluded to. It is a singular fact in the present age of the world, that delicate and indelicate subjects mean precisely the same thing.
If any proof were wanted, that slavery is the cause of all this discord, it is furnished by Eastern and Western Virginia. They belong to the same State, and are protected by the same laws; but in the former, the slave-holding interest is very strong—while in the latter, it is scarcely anything. The result is, warfare, and continual complaints, and threats of separation. There are ​no such contentions between the different sections of free States; simply because slavery, the exciting cause of strife, does not exist among them.
The constant threat of the slave-holding States is the dissolution of the Union; and they have repeated it with all the earnestness of sincerity, though there are powerful reasons why it would not be well for them to venture upon that untried state of being. In one respect only, are these threats of any consequence—they have familiarized the public mind with the subject of separation, and diminished the reverence, with which the free States have hitherto regarded the Union. The farewell advice of Washington operated like a spell upon the hearts and consciences of his countrymen. For many, many years after his death, it would almost have been deemed blasphemy to speak of separation as a possible event. I would that it still continued so! But it is now an everyday occurrence, to hear politicians, of all parties, conjecturing what system would be pursued by different sections of the country, in case of a dissolution of the Union. This evil is likewise chargeable upon slavery. The threats of separation have uniformly come from the slave-holding States; and on many important measures the free States have been awed into acquiescence by their respect for the Union.
Mr Adams, in the able and manly report before alluded to, says: "It cannot be denied that in a community spreading over a large extent of territory, and politically founded upon the principles proclaimed in the declaration of independence, but differing so widely in the elements of their social condition, that the inhabitants of one half the territory are wholly free, and those of the other half divided into masters and slaves, deep if not irreconcilable collisions of interest must abound. The question whether such a community can exist under one common government, is a subject of profound, philosophical speculation in theory. Whether it can continue long to exist, is a question to be solved only by the experiment now making by the people of this Union, under that national compact, the constitution of the United States."
​The admission of Missouri into the Union is another clear illustration of the slave-holding power. That contest was marked by the same violence and the same threats as have characterized nullification. On both occasions the planters were pitted against the commercial and manufacturing sections of the country. On both occasions the democracy of the North was, by one means or another, induced to throw its strength upon the Southern lever, to increase its already prodigious power. On both, and on all occasions, some little support has been given to Northern principles in Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina; because in portions of those States there is a considerable commercial interest, and some encouragement of free labor. So true it is, in the minutest details, that slavery and freedom are always arrayed in opposition to each other.
At the time of the Missouri question, the pestiferous effects of slavery had become too obvious to escape the observation of the most superficial statesman. The new free States admitted into the Union enjoyed tenfold prosperity compared with the new slave States. Give a free laborer a barren rock, and he will soon cover it with vegetation; while the slave and his task-master, would change the garden of Eden to a desert.
But Missouri must be admitted as a slave State, for two strong reasons. First, that the planters might perpetuate their predominant influence by adding to the slave representation,—the power of which is always concentrated against the interests of the free States.—Second, that a new market might be opened for their surplus slaves. It is lamentable to think that two votes in favor of Missouri slavery, were given by Massachusetts men; and that those two votes would have turned the scale. The planters loudly threatened to dissolve the Union, if slavery were not extended beyond the Mississippi. If the Union cannot be preserved without crime, it is an eternal truth that nothing good can be preserved by crime. The immense territories of Louisiana, Arkansas, and Florida are very likely to be formed into slave States; and every new vote on this side, places the free States more and more at the mercy of the ​South—and gives a renewed and apparently interminable lease to the duration of slavery.
The purchase or the conquest of the Texas, is a favorite scheme with Southerners, because it would occasion such an inexhaustible demand for slaves. A gentleman in the Virginia convention thought the acquisition of the Texas so certain, that he made calculations upon the increased value of negroes. We have reason to thank God that the jealousy of the Mexican government places a barrier in that direction.
The existence of slavery among us prevents the recognition of Haytian independence. That republic is fast increasing in wealth, intelligence and refinement.—Her commerce is valuable to us and might become much more so. But our Northern representatives have never even made an effort to have her independence acknowledged, because a colored ambassador would be so disagreeable to our prejudices.
Few are aware of the extent of sectional dislike in this country; and I would not speak of it, if I thought it possible to add to it. The late John Taylor, a man of great natural talent, wrote a book on the agriculture of Virginia, in which he acknowledges impoverishment, but attributes it all to the mismanagement of overseers. In this work, Mr Taylor has embodied more of the genuine spirit, the ethics and politics, of planters, than any other man; excepting perhaps, John Randolph in his speeches. He treats merchants, capitalists, bankers, and all other people not planters, as so many robbers, who live by plundering the slave owner, apparently forgetting by what plunder they themselves live.
Mr Jefferson and other eminent men from the South, have occasionally betrayed the same strong prejudices; but they were more guarded, lest the democracy of the North should be undeceived, and their votes lost. Mr Taylor's book is in high repute in the Southern States, and its sentiments widely echoed; but it is little known here.
A year or two since, I received a letter from a publisher who largely supplies the Southern market, in which he assured me that no book from the North would sell at ​the South, unless the source from which it came, were carefully concealed! Yet New England has always yielded to Southern policy in preference to uniting with the Middle States, with which she has in most respects, a congeniality of interests and habits. It has been the constant policy of the slave States to prevent the free States from acting together.
Who does not see that the American people are walking over a subterranean fire, the flames of which are fed by slavery?
The South no doubt gave her influence to General Jackson, from the conviction that a slave owner would support the slave-holding interest. The Proclamation against the nullifiers, which has given the President such sudden popularity at the North, has of course offended them. No person has a right to say that Proclamation is insincere. It will be extraordinary if a slave owner does in reality depart from the uniform system of his brethren. In the President's last Message, it is maintained that the wealthy land holders, that is, the planters, are the best part of the population;—it admits that the laws for raising of revenue by imposts have been in their operation oppressive to the South;—it recommends a gradual withdrawing of protection from manufactures;—it advises that the public lands shall cease to be a source of revenue, as soon as practicable—that they be sold to settlers—and in a convenient time the disposal of the soil be surrendered to the States respectively in which it lies;—lastly, the Message tends to discourage future appropriations of public money for purposes of internal improvement.
Every one of these items is a concession to the slave-holding policy. If the public lands are taken from the nation, and given to the States in which the soil lies, who will get the largest share? That best part of the population called planters.
The Proclamation and the Message are very unlike each other. Perhaps South Carolina is to obtain her own will by a route more certain, though more circuitous, than open rebellion. Time will show.
* ↑ It was stated, at the time, that this person frequently steamed his negroes, in order to reduce their size to an equal weight for riding race horses. This practice is understood to be common at the South.
* ↑ There are now twentyfive odd representatives—that is, representatives of slaves.
* ↑ It seems to me that a political pamphlet was never written with more ability, clearness, and moderation, than Mr Adams's Report on the Tariff.
* ↑ Virginia has great natural advantages for becoming a manufacturing country; but slavery, that does evil to all and good to none, produces a state of things which renders that impossible.
* ↑ Mr Jefferson's description of New England.