The Sun.
London, England, 1860-02-01 00:00:00

THE UNITED STATES' SOUTHERN

SL.4VERI.

There will soon be little room for the ordinary
complaint from America that their affairs excite no
interest among their kindred in Europe. The poli-
tical crisis in the United States has occasioned more
remark in print, and occupied more space in the
conversation of the day, than has perhaps ever been
known before within tke experience of this genera-
tion.

It is not the case, as some writers on this side
the water suppose, that the American Congress re-
sembles our Parliament in such a way as to make
its non-existence a disaster at all resembling the
abeyance of an English Parliament. In the Free
States the respective legislatures provide for the
wants of society so far that the failure of a Con•
greys for one year or more would scarcely be
felt as an inconvenience by the greater num-
ber of the people. In the Slave States it is
other wise. The only hope of the Southern leaders
is in Congress. Not only do they hold the
power at Washington, and fill all the posts of Go-
vernment (for instance, the 45,000 post-office ap-
pointments) with their own partisans, who look to
Congress for their pay; but they are helpless in
their own homes without the prestige of their rule
at Washington. This difference between the two
sections of the Republic suggests the expectation
that the election of a Speaker for the House of
Representatives will not be long delayed. If the
South must have a Congress, and if the South rules
at Washington, it seems as if there would certainly
be a session very soon. This desire and will are a
stronger reason than any pressure of public busi-
ness, with the one exception of the destitute
condition of the Post•office, 'which has received
no pay since the session before the last. This
institution is one of five departments managed
by Congress. The others are Foreign rela-
tions, the Coinage, the Customs, and the Public
Lands. These are all ; and thus there can be no
just comparison between the legislative business
transacted or omitted at Washington and in
London.

It may be from the habit of supposing that the
Southern leaders will have their own way that
some solution is expected by many persons who
ought to know : for there is no appearance of any
yielding on the part of the Republican Members,
whose candidate has headed the list throughout.
The spectacle of those members will never be for-
gotten, we are told, by any who have watched
them in their places since Christmas. They keep
the House up to its weary work of perpetual divi-
sions. Instead of being careless now as to whether
Congress is organised or not, they permit no levity,
and no relaxation. The motion for a holiday on
New Year's-eve and the Monday was carried by only
one vote ; and it would have been lost but for
the complaint of the clerk that he was too ill to
attend to business. Day by day these determined
men are in their seats, armed, grave, silent, and
with countenances which show the white heat
within, kindled and husbanded for a future response
to the flames and flashes and explosions of the de-
monstrative Southerners. Two of the Republican
voters have fallen off, in dread of what is coming.
More may do the same, even though three votes
would have repeatedly settled the business in favour
of the Republican candidate. Otherwise the
Northern men will not yield. They will not give
way for the sake of the ordinary public business ;
for they and their constituents are well aware that
the whole sum of ordinary public business is a trifle,
in comparison with the question they are now con-
testing—whether the State shall be preserved by
the restoration of the liberty of the citizens, or
whether persistence in slave institutions shall carry
down the whole republic, with its various races and
classes into a common ruin.

If the Republican members should be beaten
about the Speakership, the question is—what next ?
Noisy triumph on the winning side is a matter of
course in such a case; and is of no great consequence
beyond the encouragement to lawlessness at the
moment. The next certainty is that the struggle
will be brought into such a shape that it must soon
be decided. From the moment of an election of a
Speaker, there will be practically but two parties ;
and there will be but one question for them to de-
bate. The end will then be at hand. All the
world knows where the strength lies. The North
can settle the business at the coming election ; and
the South can make no more resistance than the
North allows. Yet we hear the anxious inquiry
more and more frequently, whether the British
Government will recognise with perfect impartiality
two confederations, if the Slave States should really
be permitted to try to form one of their own.
Meantime, there are symptoms of more or less
foresight being exercised in view of an expeeted
catastrophe. The urgency with which several
members of the House of Lords spoke about a
supply of cotton, on Friday last, may mean, and
we hope it does, that they are aware of the pre-
cariousness of the American crop under the poli- ,
tical circumstances of the time. Too many are,
however. ignorant of the break up of Southern in-
dustry and production wnicn nas aireaay begun.
The commercial business of the slave States is
conducted through the Northern merchants. At pre-
sent every person from the North is regarded and
treated as an abolitionist, and commercial agents are
no exception, even when they are well known on the
road. Not only are pedlars all shipped off from
the nearest ports; and governesses on their way
to schools where they teach arrested and warned
to go home ; and bricklayers and stonemasons dis-
missed by night from New Orleans, and by day
from Charleston ; and book-agents imprisoned, and
their property confiscated, because they sell a
"Life of Christ" published in New England; but
the partners and agents of commercial houses are
turned back without an order, and with threats, in
case of their appearing again beyond the frontier.
They describe a perfect stagnation of business ; and
they see no end of it. More significant than even
this is the simultaneous action of several States
about the free negroes. That action is perfectly
absurd, but it is not the less cruel to the men, nor
the less fatal to the industry of the South. As the
presence of free blacks must always render black
slavery dangerous and difficult, frantic efforts are
made to get rid of free blacks who refuse to
absent themselves. In Maryland, some foolish
men have actually proposed, as we have seen, to
make slaves of 90,000 free negroes, though
Maryland has for many years been unfortunate
with its negroes, being unable to keep them, on
the one hand, and to make any profit, on the other,
of those who remained. In order to obtain some
sanction of such a proposal, the projectors give a
character of free negroes which is certainly not
commonly true; and which, if true in Maryland,
condemns the state of society there. The adjoining
State, Pennsylvania, though no pattern of brotherly
love, may rebuke Maryland's report of negro . -
ness, shiftlessness, and dispute. In Philadelphia
there are blocks of houses and groups of shipping
belonging to negroes, which show that they are
much like other men in a state of freedom. In
Missouri, the Legislature has decreed the expul-
sion of all negroes, under penalty of their
being sold into slavery. In Mississippi the
same process has been gone through ; but
the judges here and there have remonstrated on the
outrageous character of the act, and have shown
that, if such provisions could be executed, the imme-
diate consequence would be insurrection on every
estate where a free negro was deposited as a slave.
As for leaving the respective States where these en-
actments are made, the blacks do it at the moment ;
just as twelve families of respectable white citizens
have left their homes in Kentucky, by command
of their neighbours, simply because they are of
northern birth or derivation ; but the free blacks as
a body refuse to leave the country. They meet in
conventions, to confirm their claim of citizenship ;
they provide means of education and general ele-
vation for their class ; and they emphatically and
especially refuse to go to Africa while a negro
slave is left in America. This resolution largely
affects the prospects of African cotton. No one
perhaps doubts of the possibility and the benefit of
obtaining almost any qaantity of cotton from
Africa; but it must not be expected from the African
Civilisation Society, or the American Colonisation
Society, in as far as their action depends on the
migration of the free negroes of the United States.
They will not emigrants to grow cotton ; and they
are not allowed to grow cotton at home. Our plans
must be formed without regard to them.
Meantime the slaves were escaping to Canada at
the rate of 2,000 a year before the present agitation.
Those who remain behind know very well what the
agitation is about. If the South could possibly form
a separate confederation for an hour, there could be
no effectual detention of tke slaves, who would
escape in tenfold numbers, if indeed they did not
rise the moment their masters had relinquished the
hly
protection of the North. Apparently, the only
chance for Southern production and Southern se.7-
rity and peace is in the Northern States put tl g
forth their power to compel the South to keep quiet
.t
and mind its business. In that case, time might b
orderly and safe
gained for abolishing slavery
way. Under any other. suppositionthreat of the slave-
holders, there seems no
hope. If disunion is
it is a perilousa omnweerfeor them to utter, as
they are wholly in the power of those who would
antagonists. "If it
then be to a tn
politician who
should take place," says
„a
un-
derstands the course of events on the spot,. " for
all that I can see, the white ant d black
,races in the
South would go down in uin ogethe.r.
It is only necessary, in order to estimate the pro-
babilities of American cotton, to look at the sum of
labour in the cotton States. Free labour answers
well wherever tried; and if the slaves were freed
in an orderly way, the production of cotton might