The spirit of democracy. [volume] (Woodsfield, Ohio) 1844-1994, 1844-08-02

ution, as we certainly will by the re-annextion OF
Texas, slavery will disappear from Delaware in ten
years, and from Maryland in twenty, and have
greatly diminished in Virginia and Kentucky. AS
then, by remuneration, slavery advances in Texas,
it must recede to the same ertent from the more
northern of the slaveholding States; and conse-
quently, the evil to the northern States, from the
expulsion into them of free blacks, by abolition,
gradual or immediate, would thereby be greatly
miigated, if not entirely prevented. In the Dis
trict of Columbia, by the drain to the new States
and Territories of the South and Southwest, the
slaves have been reduced from 6,119 in 1880, to
1864 in 1910; and if, by the remuneration, slavery
receded in double ratio, then it would disappear
altogether from the District in twelve years; and
that question, which now occupies so much of the
time of Congress- and threatenss seriously the har
mony, if not the existence of the Union, would be
put at rest by the remuneration of Texas. This
annexation, then, would only change the locality
OF the slaves, and OF the savehoding States, with
out augmenting their number. And is Texas to
be lost TO the Union, not by the question OF the
istence Of slavery, but Of its locality only' If
slavery be considered by the States of the North as
an evil, why should they prefer that its location
should be continued in States their border, rath-
er than in the more distant portions of the Union ?
1t is clear that, as slavery advanced in Texas, it
would recede from the States bordering on the free
States of the North and West; and thus they would
be released from actual contact with what they
slider an evil, and also from all influx from those
States ofa large and constantly augmenting free
black population. Asregards the slaves, the Afri-
can being from tropical climate, and from the re-
gion of the burning sands and sun, his comfort and
condition would be greatly improved, by trans
fer from northern ATTITUDES to the genial and most
salubrious climate of Texas. There he would new
er suffer from that exposure to cold and frost,
which he feels so much more severely than any
other race and there, also, from the great fertility
of the soil, and exuberance of its products his sup
ply of food would be abundant If desire to i'm
prove the condition and increase the comforts Of
the slave really animated the anti-slavery party.
they would be the warmest advocates of the rean-
nexation of Texas Nor can it be disguised that,
by the remuneration, as the number of free blacks
augmented in the slaveholding States, they would
be diffused gradually through Texas into Mexico,
and Central and Southern America, where nine
tenths of their present population already of the
colored races, and where, from their vast prepon-
derance in number, they are not degraded caste,
but upon footing, not merely oflegal, but what
is far more important, of actual equality with the
rest Of the population. Here, then, if Texas is re-
annexed throughout the vast region and salubrious
Southern America, large and rapidly increasing
portion of the African will disappear from the
limits Of the Union. The process win be gradual
and progressive, without shock, and without
convulsion; whereas, by the loss Of Texas, and the
Imprisonment ofthe slave population Of the Union
within its present limits, slavery would increase in
nearly all the slaveholding States, and change in
their condition would become impossible; or if it
did take place by sudden or gradual abolition, the
result would as certainly be the sudden or gradual
ofhundreds of thousands offree blacks
into the States of the North; and if their condi-
ton there is already deplorable, how would 1t be
when their number there should be augmented
tenfold, and the burden become ntolerable' Then
indeed, by the loss of the markets of Texas-by the
taxation imposed by an immense free black popula-
ton, depressing the value of all propertythen, al
so from the competition for employment Of the free
blacks with the white laborer of the North, his
wages would be reduced until they would fall to
ten or twenty cents day, and starvation and mise
ry would be introduced among the white laboring
population There is but one way in which the
North can escape these evils and that is the rean-
nexation of Texas, which is the only safety-valve
for the whole Union, and the only practicable out
let for the African population, through Texas into
Mexico and Central and Southern America
There is congenial climate for the African race
There cold and want and hunger will not drive the
African, as we see il does in the North, into the
poor-house and the jai, and the asylums of the idiot
and insane. There the boundless and almost un-
peoped territory of Mexico, and of Central and
Southern America, with its delicious climate, and
most prolific soil, renders most easy the means of
and there they would not be degra-
ded caste, but equals among equals, not only by
law, but by feeling and association.
The medical writer's all say, (and experience con-
firms the asserton,) that ill-treatment, overwork,
neglect, in infancy and sickness, drunkenness,
want, and crime, are the chief causes of idiocy,
and lunacy; whilst none will deny that
want and guilt fill the poor-house and the jail
Why is it, them that the free black is (as the cen
sus proves) much more wretched in condition, and
debased in morals, than the slave! These free
blacks are among the people of the North, and
their condition is most deplorable In the two great
States of Maine and Massachusetts,, where, since
1850, slavery never existed. Now, the people of
the North are eminently humane, religious, and
intelligent. What, then, is the cause ofthe mise
ry and debasement their free black population
It is chiefly in the fact that the free blacks, among
their real superiors-our own white population
are and ever will be, degraded caste, free only in
name, without any of the blessings of freedom
Here they can have no pride. and no aspirations