The Press.
London, England, 1858-06-26 00:00:00

THE PRESS, JUNE 26, 1858

material in Africa, where the land does not re-
quire it ; there is a dearth of it in the States,
where the necessities of cotton and tobacco do.
Is there no mode of algebraically solving the
problem ? By no theory of civilization can the
plus be turned into a minus ? Is it not possible
to bring over or borrow a sufficient sum, and
mentally debit the State with it, for the sake of
a good commercial answer ? If negroes in their
own country refuse to develop their faculties and
to satisfy our standard of happiness, is it not ex-
cusable at least to take possession of them and
conduct them into that state of industrial hap-
piness and development where they will, and for
which they were evidently intended ? This is a
common mode of stating the argument; but the
Alabama Committee is more outspoken.
"As to the question," states the Report,
" whether, in any event, it may be right to bring
" the negro by compulsion to a life of labour—
, " that question we take to be determined by
" domestic slavery." The question of abstract
right or wrong is determined by the domestic
fact. The law allows, and the South requires,
the institution. The North opposes it upon
arguments of strict democracy ; the South upon
the basis of aristocracy. All men are equal,
urges the North, pointing to the level of the
Declaration of Independence. All men are
not equal, replies the South, objecting to
the horizontal plain. Democracy, according
to the South, is a popular ideal; a social
and political inequality is an historical fact.
The Report propounds,—" Whenever States
have come to greatness, they have exhibited the
condition of unequal classes. There were citi-
zens and slaves in Greece, patricians and ple-
beians in Rome, peers and villains in England,
nobles and peasants in Central Europe. Generally
whenever there has been power and progress,
there has been articulation, a ruling and a sub-
ject class—if not a ruling and a subject race."
From this premiss it is quite clear that there
must be negro slaves in the United States.
" The analogies of this great universe are not
" against the institution.' The Committee has
" no means of knowing what is to be the final
" constitution of society '." but it is inclined to
fancy that slavery will be perpetuated, under
some new form, in a future state. All zoology
is in favour of it. Proceeding through rotifers
and polyps and carnivores, we find different
castes of subject animals, until we arrive at the
highest dominant type in creation—a Southern
planter. On this firm and solid stand-point
the Committee of the Southern Commercial
Convention feels that it can confront the advance
of the North. An inequality of races is neces-
sary, and if the State of Alabama is ever to be-
come fit for the final constitution of society, the
Committee is of opinion that the State must
sedulously and rigorously extend that inequality.
This inequality, sufficiently promoted, as it could
not fail to be, by the revival of the African slave
trade, would give to the South what it wants at
present. It would, to cite the Report, give
" labour—population; it would give us powers
"of extension to vacant territory; it would
"draw foreign enterprize to its embrace—foreign
" capital to its support; and it would furnish the
"commodity into which to subsidize the anis-
" saries of the North to whip the North from
" every field of population." In other words, it
would accelerate the millennium for the planter,
though it might not do so much for the slave.
It is urged by the Committee with a good deal
of force, that the remarkable impulse of the
North has been owing to " the foreign wave of
power," in the shape of 250,000 innuagrants a
year. The South, on the other hand, has had
no such " foreign wave,"—the wave of labour
has been rather receding than advancing; and
" though labour has been productive, products
abundant," the Committee report a somewhat
remarkable fact :—" Many would fail to sell
" estates to-day for as much as was paid for them
" in market filly years ago."
A foreign African wave, or rather surf is
urgently required; yet if labour becomes cheaper,
will not the price of slaves be thereby lowered,
as well as the value of the commercial products
of their labour? The price may be lowered, we
are told, without injury :

" Those who own slaves now will be the first,
perhaps, to buy them. Though not competent
to do the business of educated slaves, they will

603

be yet able, under the direction of eddcgted
slaves, to do the business which would else re-
quire a better class of labour; and, without there
should be a reduction in the price of Southern
staples, the trained slaves cannot be less valuable
than they are, and with this want of them to
guide and regulate the African, it is possible that
they may come to even higher value."

Nor will the price be greatly affected. Cotton
may possibly come down to a level with other
staples, but there would be still a large market
open. The South at present produces only two-
thirds of the cotton required by the world. With
a greater stimulus it might drive Egypt and India
from the market ; in any case there would be
left a broad basis for rice, and hemp, and tobacco;
for fruits, and perhaps for tea and coffee.
But will not the slave element, if largely
increased, become an element of danger ? Armed
with proper discipline, the Committee has no
apprehension of that. Negroes without civil
rights and without education are, it is argued, by
no means refractory ; if they give signs of mutiny,
sufficient remedies are at hand. Nor need the
Slave States, if reinforced by a large negro immi-
gration, apprehend the antagonism of the North.
With an importation of one or two hundred
thousand slaves, it will not be necessary to fight
for an extension of territory, as the South had to
fight for Kansas. The North will find it their
interest to succumb. Instead of being nests of
political demagogisin, the Northern States will
be homes of peaceful manufacture and mer-
chandize ; the South growing cotton, and the
North making money by spinning and weaving
it. Thus the American Union would carry out
the intention of PROVIDENCE, by employing the
slave in the work for which his defective intelli-
gence appears to fit him ; and the Committee
would, as they express their sincere desire, "in
" humble reliance on an overruling PROVIDENCE,
"do their part by slavery." The result at which
the ruling race arrive we commend to the serious
consideration of European sympathizers :
" Under the influence of these consideratio
your Committee are constrained to favour the re-
opening of the Foreign Slave Trade, and they
propose for the adoption of this Convention the
following resolutions :
" 1. Resolved, That Slavery is right, and that
being right, there can be no wrong in the natural
means to its fbrination.
"2. Resolved, That it is expedient and proper
the Foreign Slave Trade should be re-opened,
and that this Convention will lend its influence
to any legitimate measure to that end.
"3. Resolved, That a committee consisting o
one from each slave State be appointed to con-
sider of the means, consistent with the duty and
obligations of these States, for re-opening the
Foreign Slave Trade, and that they report their
plan to the next meeting of this Convention."

THE THAMES WATER-CURE (?)
WHEN BURKE maintained that there might be
stench intense enough to be sublime—that the
loathsomeness of the cause might be forgotten in
the overpowering greatness of the effect—the
Thames was as clear as the average of large rivers,
and not much less pure. Even about London
the elements of pollution were rather known than
felt to exist. To row between the bridges was
still pleasant; the water, but slightly turbid,
and never fetid, was still fit for washing or
teamaking—for cleansing the outer or refreshing
the inner man. ',Salmon maintained their
periodic migrations, and anglers still sallied from
their armoury in Crooked-lane to attack the
shoals of roach in their autumnal descent to
London-bridge. BusicE's Thames experience
was of a river, not a cesspool, and he happily
lacked the opportunity of testing his mephitic
theory on the grandest scale. Could he have
lived to see these days of " progress," and have
enjoyed a trip in a penny steamer at low water,
he might have modified his views. At all events,
they have no living advocates from Putney to the
Isle of Dogs. The cry of annoyance, of disgust, of
loathing, wearies all the echoes of the metropolis.
The legislator, perspiring under the press of
business, longs in vain for a breath of fresh air
from the river, whose expanse mocks him like s