The North-Carolina standard., 1844-04-17


number. And is Texas to be lost 10 the Union,'
not by the question of the existence of slavery,
but Of its locality onlyq If slavery be consider
ed bv the States of the North as an evil, why
should they prefer that its location should be con-
tnued In States on their border rather than in the
more distant portions of the Union. 1t is clear
that. as slavery advanced in Texas, il would re-
cede 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 con-
slider an evil, and also from all influx from those
States of a large and constantly augmenting free
black population. AS regards the slaves the
African being from tropical climate, and from
the region of the burning sands and sun, his
comfort and condition would be greatly improved,
by transfer from Northern latitudes to the genial
and most salubrious climate Of Texas. There he
would never 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 exuberancs of its pro-
ducts, his supply of foed would be abundant. If
a desire to improve the condition and increase
the comforts of the slave really animated the anti
slavery patty, they would be the warmest adVo-
Gates Of the remuneration Of Texas. Nor can 1t
be disguised that, by the remuneration as the num-
Der of free blacks augmented in the saveholding
States, they would be diffused gradually through
Texas into Mexico, and Central and Southern
lation are already of the colored races and where
from their vast preponderance in number, they
are not degraded caste, but upon footing: not
merely of legal, but what is far more important,
of actual equality with the rest Of the population
Here then, if Texas is reannexed throughout the
vast region and salubrious and delicious climate
of Mexico and Of Central and Southern America
a large and rapidly increasing portion OF the Al
rican race will disappear from the limits of the
- ho dTIaI and nrn-
gressive, without shock, and without conVul-
sion; whereas. by the loss of Texas and the I'M
prisonment Of The slave population Of the Union
within its present Limits, slavery would increase
in nearly all the slavehoflng States, and change
in their condition would become impossible; or
if did take place by sudden gradual abolition,
the result would as certainly be the sudden or
gradual introduction of hundreds of thousands of
free blacks inte the States of the North and if
their condition there is already deploEable, how
would it be when their number there should be
augmented tenfold, aud the burden become intol-
erablsq Then indeed, by the loss of the markets
Of T"xas-by the taxation impooed by an i'm
nense free black population, depressing the value
of property-lhen also, from the competition for
employment of the free black with the white
laboIer of the North,-hs wages would be re-
duced until they would fall to ten or twenty cents
a day, and starvation and misery would be intro
There is but one way in which the North can
escape these evils; and that is the remuneration
of Texas, which is the only safetyvalve for the
whole Union, and the only practicable outlet for
the African population through Texas, into Mex-
co and Central and Southern America. There
is a congenial climate for the African race. The
cold and want and hunger will not drive the AT
rican, it does in the North, into the
poor-house and the Jail, and the asylums of the
I II.
unpeopled territory of Mexico, and of CeAtral
and Southern America, with its delicious climate
and most prolific soil, renders most easy the means
Of subsistence and there would not be dograd- |
ed caste, but equals among equals, not only by |
law, but by feeling and association.
The medical writers all say, (and experience |
confirms the aSsertion,) that ill-treatment, over
work, neg glect in infancy nn1 sickness drunkenness,
want and crime, are the chief causes sof idiocy,
that want and gull, fill the poor-house and the
Jail. Why is it. then, that the free black is (as
the census proves) much more wretched in con-
dnion, 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 1880, slavery never existed Now,
the people of the North are eminently humane,
religious, and intelligent. What then, is the
CduSe OI tue misery ana ocoaSemcnt OF their Tree
black population2 1t is chiefly in the fact that
the free blacks, among their real superiors-our
own white populatien-are, and ever will be,
degrad d caste, free only in name, without any of
the blessings offreedom. Here they can have no
pride, and no aspirations-no spirit of industry or
emuation and, in most cases, to live to vegetate,
Is their only desire. Hence, the efforts 10 i'm
prove their Condition, so long made, in Massachu-
Hets, Peunsy lvania, and many other States, have
proved utterly unavaiing; and it grows worse {
every year. as that population augments in num- {
bers. In vain do many of the States give the {
negro the right Of suffrage, and all the legal pri-
vlieges of the whites the color marks the dread
ful difference which, here, at least, ages cannot
obliterate. The negroes, however, equal in law, {
are not equal in fact =. They are nowhere found &
IN the colleges or universities, upon the bench or
At the bar, in the muster, the jury-boq, in egis
atiTe or executive stations nor does marriage, s
hs great bond of society, unite the white with /
he negro, except rare occurrence of such un- t
natural alliance to call forth the scorn or disgust
of the whole community. Indeed, l could truly {
say, if passing into the immediate presence ofI a
the Most High, that, in morals and comforts, the
free black is far below the slave; and that while
The condition of the slave has been ereatlv ans. s
iorated, and is improving every year, that of the
free blacks las the official tables demonstrate) Is
sinking in misery aud debasement at every census
as, from time to time, by emancipation and other
causes, they are augmented in number Can # y