Southport telegraph. [volume] (Southport, W.T. [i.e. Kenosha, Wis.]) 1840-1850, 1844-08-06

politician who fanctully imagines that a
freeman is more apt to be fond of liberty
If Graded in land Of slaves, may mourn
over SO early downfall Of his cherished
institution and the aboltionists may per
haps doubt whether it is worth while to
work so hard as he is doing, in the vain
imagination Of Fastening wha, must me-
cessarly come SO soon. But there is the
fact for them to ponder on; those are now
living who will see the last of negro sla-
very in the U. St tes
But when this time shall have conn,
what is to be the lot of the negroes In
1886, when their value has become ques-
tionable, they will number eight and a
half millions; by the year 1926, the peri
cd before which the emancipation must
lake place, they will equal twenty four
millions Of souls. What is to be done
in the next forty-thrce years with these
eight millions and half Of unproduc,ive
laborers; what in the next eighty-two
with these four millions Of paupers
Here arithmetic fails. Shall they be
emancipated on the soil that bred them?--
They will cover it with pauperism, with
rapine and desolation. Their masters, i'm
poverished by the depreciation and ultimate
destruction of their property, with planta
tons encountered and incapable Of profita
BILE culture, how are they to support in
the poorhouse or by parochial relief those
who before constituted their wealth d?
Shall they be retained in bondage? The
slaves of bankrupt masters, valueless them
selves! 1t is only to levy in different
form an insupportable tax for pauperisnl
on those who are themselves paupers.
Shall they be invited to migrate to the
North and West? Ohio has already closed
her door against them by laws making ii
penal to introduce free negro wthcu, in
Identifying the State against the risk Of his
becoming pauper. Pennsylvania has al
tered her Constitution so as 10 preclude the
possibility Of any but a white man becom-
ing citizen. In the Eastern and more
Northern States, and in Canada, where
this philanthropy is most rife, the negro
cannot live: the climate destroys him. In
Massachusetts, though the negro and white
man are equally freeman and citizens,
There, OF three quarters of a million Of in
habItants, but eight thousand are negroes.
What, then, is to be The fate of the ne
gro Of our Southern States? Remain as
he Is. he cannot. His condition must
change-but what is the change to be q
Where is he to go-what to be his condi-
ton? Three-fou tbs Of a century, and the
question will have been decided for good
or for evil. Nor can we blind ourselves
To lis consequences, either 20 our Southern
brethren or to The Unlon,-lo the white
man or to the negro.
But is there no escape from the evils
that impend upon the emancipation OF the
Southern slaves! Is this great moral good
to be purchased only by horrors at which
humanity sickens? Let him tina, believes
in the warchlulncss Of Providence, or its
wisdom, or It's power, tromble in view of
the calamltIes that are before us a com
munity ruined and hopeless, "a servile war,
wi h its bloody hearih-stones and desecra-
ted affairs, "a dcsolated empire. But to
those who have fully marked the dispensa-
tons of The Most High. no crisis, present
or prospective, can bring despair.
The Republic of Texas, that now sues
for admission into the American Union,
skirts on the one side the southern line Of
the United States, and on the other, stretch
e' along the ex9anded frontier of Mexico.
The climate Of this last named country is
the most favorable Of the whole globe for
the development Of the negro race more
uniformly mild than the North or West,
more salubrous tn Africa, and with a
soil spontaneously productive. There, and
IN Central America, and in the vast regions
still further south, the negro is already a
ireeman,-socially as well as politically,
the equal OF the white. Nine-tenlhs of the
population there is made up of the cclored
races the Generals. the Congressman,
the Presidents, are men OF mixed blood.
Let the cmancipated negro once find
himself on the borders Of Mexico and the
States beyond, and his fate is no longer
doubtful or gloomy. He is near the land
of his fellows, where equal rights and equal
hopes await him and his offspring.
Nor does it require the mysterious fore
sight of q prophet TO mark out the very
steps by which he is 10 arrive there. The
negro is less valuable as laborer in the
North than in the South he cxults in tn e
sunshine of the tropics, and shrinks before
the bracing winters of more temperate
latitude. The slave, too, is less valuable
as he approaches the confines Of q free
State. Eyaggera,ing the happiness Of that
Incidence which he regards as the charac
teristc Of liberty, and aware OF the posi-
biity of escape into country where slave
~ does not exist, he becomes disconnected,
reluctant, insubordinate. Besides he is
there in almost immediate competition with
the free laborer: they have the same EN-.
Payments, and the products Of their labor
are of the same sort, while the slave is the
more wasteful and less productive laborer
Of the two.
AS a natural consequence, negro slavery
recedes willingly from the more northern
climate, especially il il escapes by so doing
from the perilous rivalry of free labor
You have only TO present 10 the planter an
equally fertile region 10 the south Of him,
you have only 10 show hm that it offers
less facilities for the escape of his slaves,
and whether i, be regard for their increased
health and consequent longevity, anxiety
to retain his property in security, or the
mere desire 10 make heir labor as profita-
BILE, you may be sure of his willingness TO