The Sun.
London, England, 1839-09-20 00:00:00

_EVENING EDITION.

TEXAS.

TO THE FRIENDS OF THE ABOLITION OF
THE SLAVE TRADE AND SLAVERY.
Two letters have appeared in various London and
Provincial Papers on the subject of Texas, and
though I was not cognizant of either until I saw
them in print, and do not know why the parties
thought fit, in publishing their rules, to address so
humble an individual as myself, yet I am fully
sensible of the momentous importance of the ques-
tion to the abolition of the Slave Trade and

Slavery.
The first of these letters is written by Daniel
O'Connell, who, it is needless for me to say, has
been a consistent advocate of the freedom of the
negro from the time he first took his seat in Parlia-
ment. Without giving an opinion on the details
. of the plans he proposes, I consider that both it and
i the two motions of which he has given notice for
next Session, are worthy of his principles as an
enemy of slavery. Whether the language he em-
ploys is too strong, I leave those to judge who have
read a work entitled " American Slavery as it Is,
on the Testimony of 1,000 Witnesses," recently
published.
With the author •of the second letter, signed
" William Kennedy," which controverts the state-
ments and opinions of Daniel O'Connell, I am un-
aquainted, and, having neither the leisure nor abi-
lity to enter into the old question of the Texas,
which I trust will be shortly laid before the pub-
lic by parties thoroughly conversant with it, I will
only advert to one or two points in this letter.
When asserting that the slave trade is made
piracy by the Texian , Constitution, he also
says. " Population being essential to the very
existence of the State, American planters were
received on the only terms that could induce them
to transfer their capital to the soil."' The English
reader will perhaps hardly believe that these " only
terms" are, that while the slave trade by sea is
made piracy, the American slave traders by land
should not only have a monopoly of this accursed
traffic, Without any limit or check, from their slave
breeding states, but that it should be part of the
,Tex;an Constitution that the subject of the aboli-
tion of slavery should not even be entertained with-
outfve years' notice—a time which it is well known
) on the calculation of Southern Planters themselves
is about sufficient to work a race of negroes to
death.*
The writer of this letter professes great abhor-
, ence of the character of General Santa Anna,
but his real crime in the eyes of the American
Slave-owners is enforcing the abolition of sla-
very throughout the Mexican Republic, when they
were waiting to seize Texas as a market for their
slaves. This object was publicly avowed by them ten
yearsago. In the debates in the Virginian Convent ion
in 1829, Judge Upsher said " If it should be our
lot, as I trust it will be, to acquire the country of
1 Texas, their price (the slaves) will rise again."—
n
(Debates, page 77.) At the same Convention,
and in the same year, 1829 (page 89), the Hon.
Philip Doddritlge statad that the acquisition of
Texas will greatly enhance the property in ques-
tion, that is, Virginian slaves.
We are told by the advocate of the Texian
scheme, as a caution not to interfere, that the cause
of emancipation has retroeaded in the United
States, " owing to the intemperate zeal of the
northern abolitionists." I need not remind the
friends of emancipation in England that this was
ever the favourite assertion of the slave-holders and
their advocates during the struggle for negro free-
dom in the British West India Colonies, nor
yet record the opinion of American gentlemen most
accurately informed on the subject, that the bold
1 and strenuous efforts of the northern abolitionists
in denouncing this plague-spot of their social and
i political system, have within the last four years
done more towards effecting its extinction than the
exertions of the previous half century. The slave-
! owners of the South know this full well. There is
reason to hope that, even amongst the trifling popu-
-! lation of which the Texas is as yet composed, there
are many honest friends of liberty who will assist in
destroying this iniquity in the bud.
I have a letter by the last steam-packet from
l New York, written by a gentleman intimately ac-
i quainted with that territory, in which he says-
-1 " The population consists of eighty to one
I hundred thousand from all parts of the world ;
I though a preponderance from the Southern States.
AThere are, perhaps, 20,000 slaves. The egis l •1 a-
.) tion and laws favour slavery, though they prohibit
the introduction of slaves from any country but the
United States. Some good men, whose interest on
I the subject is confined to their own country, think
Jthat it will drain off the slave population of the
I United States if the system is continued there, but
this is a short-sighted view of the subject ; it will
barely furnish a market for the surplus, and no
more drain the United States than Louisiana and
Virginia. On the contrary, the immense region of
I cotton land in Texas opened to this kind of cultiva-
tion, will foster and sustain the system of slavery to an
extent which can hardly be conceived. Just so fast as
the increasing population and the greedy rapacity of
the Anglo-Saxon race requires a greater extension
of. territory, they will not fail to find some reason
for wresting it from the indolent and powerless
' Mexicans ; and, as far as human foresight can
,penetrate, there is nothing to prevent the renewal
of the accursed system to the Straits of Darien—.
, by .a professedly Christian people, where it has
once been abolished by a semi-barbarous race."
1 ..1/Tere is a general impression in the north that
1 Texas is a fertile and delightful country ; and
lit is slavery alone that prevents an immense
' emigration from this section to that. country. Means
might also be taken to turn that current of
European emigration which is now setting to the
I North Western States of Texas. A strong party
.
1 so Texas is in favour of freedom, who have now
no;hing to concentrate them and no opportunity
of getting their sentiments before the public. It
must L:lways be remembered that the present popu-
lation mr Texas is a mere handful, equal, perhaps,
to on of the wards of some of your large cities ; nor
need the ISsitish Government entertain any fears
of embroiling itself with the United States by such
a proceeding (ti:e promotion of the abolition of
slavery) ; on the Cow rary, it would meet with the
hearty concurrence of .a large majority here."
Such, then, being ths, fearful plan for erecting
, the new State of Texas, by giving new life and
energy to a system of crime and injustice, which in
,i many of the neighbouring States is sinking under
its inherent rottenness, it becomes the duty of
1 e very real abolitionist, whether in England or
America, to warn his countrymen against being
dees‘yed within the sphere of its contaminating in-
. finance. li-.. inched, the strange assertion that " the
settlers of 'Texas are under the influence of English
Common Law," were one of substantial truth,
then would that country be a sanctuary of freedom
for the bleeding victims of the American Slave
'Trade, and to every one who reached her soil be.
wane the "land of the free," and the enemies of
the system would be justified in using every legiti-
mate exertion in promoting the establishment of
such a
,glorious Republic, and the recognition of
. I its indep,andence. But instead of this, the ccuntry
is designers' to " be the home of the slave," and to
pled b,v a traffic more hideous than the Afri-
be peo
1 can Slave Traale itself.

a.-0, very respectfully,
JOSEPH STURGE.
Birmingham, 9th Month. 18th, 1839.

'rue Rev. Dr. Reed, cf London, who went through
Kentucky, Virginia,
* and in the summer of
Ma.'lland,
1834, gives the followirg testin:ony :--" It was told con.
fidently, and from excellent authority, that recently at a
meeting of planters in South Carolna, the question was
oeriously discussed whether the slave is more profitable to
tlie owner, if well fed, well clothed, and worked lightly,
or if made the most of
wi
a t once,sinand favourexhaustedlast in
alter-
native."--Visit eight years. The decision
to the American Churches, by the Rev.
page 173.
Dr, Reed and IVattheaon, vol. 2,
now pf Buf-
falo,List Church, Bedford, Massachusetts, .
The Rev. John O. Chou es, recently pastor of the Bap-
New York, made
at
New
substant:olly the following state-
ment in a speech at 80, ton '—
ist T,'ennial Convention at
" While attending the :_laPt 1.135, as a Delegate
Richmond Virginia, in the s; ring of Nu slavery with
from Massachusetts, I bad a co:tyersation .
.t,...
an officer of the Baptist Church in thatr
heie.
,7:-.4 pot ap-
house I was a guest. I asked my host i . a at ehose
e a.vi -l'er-
prehend that the slaves would eventually rise .
I__, , I
:d the gentlet. au
minate their masters? ' Why,' ca.
used to apprehend such a catastrophe,
but Cod has "nade a
/
providential opening, a merciful safety
vave , and ,tote .i
rem
do not feel alarmed in the prospect of whatis
_s oci.,, Wcoming
' hat do you mean,' said Mr. Cheules, 'by
Providet he gen- I
opening a merciful safety valve?'—' Why,' said from the
tleman, ' I will tell you: the slave trader come
ift..,. _
cotton and sugar plentations oa the south, and ar.e.,,iminunsgt
to buy up more slaves than we can part with. "c
keep a stock for the pur
pose of rearing slaves, but we pact ,
1 with the most valuable, and at the same time the most dun- I
geroua, and the demand 13 very constant end likely to be
' St))
for when they go to the southern states the average
existence is ONLY FIVE YILARS r "—American Slavery As
It age 39.