American Republican and Baltimore daily clipper. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1844-1846, 1845-05-14
DR.. BAsCOM ON SLAVERY.

We give below some additional extracts from
the interesting and ably written pamphlet OF
the Rev. Dr. Bascom, on the slave question:
The abolition of slavery has been extensively
agitated, three several times in the U. States.
The first was about the time Of the formation
of the Federal Government. Shortly after the
adoption of the Constitution, numerous aboli-
ton petitions reached Congress, under the ad-
mlnistration of Washington, praying the inter
position of the General Government. They
were respectfully received and referred to an
able committee, as all such petitions should be
and the report Of the committee was, that the
General Government had nothing to do with
the subject-no right to interfere in any way,
as the matter belonged wholly to the slave
holding States, without any right, on the part
of individuals, societies, churches, or the free
States, even to NEEDLE with 1t. And SO the
matter was disposed of, apparently to the salts
faction ofall concerned, and the excitement all
died away.
The next abolition era, connects with the ad-
mission Of Missouri, thirty years after, when
the compromise to which we have alluded took
place, and again settled the quo stion. The third
movement followed that of Eng land, in relation
to West India Slavery, and has continued ever
since, although the movenents-the emanci-
patton proposed here, and that which took
place in the West lndies--are utterly unanala-
gous. Here, the negroes are in the midst of
US, locally mixed up with great people, being
to the white population as one in three. There,
they were scattered among a cluster of distant
islands, and were twenty to one as to number,
rendering an expensive military force indspen-
sable to the safety, in each island. Had four
millions of negro slaves been mixed up with
tha nr ard Irolo 10 md md
Wales, does any sane person suppose they
would have been emancipated by the English
Parliament? Or rather, is it not certain they
would not have been, unless their instant re-
n1ovGl had been provided for? It is an instance,
therefore, Of the most stupid injustice, to at
tempt to reason by analogy from the one to the
other. Long before any appeal was heard from
the North, the voice of the South was empha-
tic in the dennnciation of negro slavery The
colonies of Virginia and Georgia and even
South Carolina, boldly demonstrated against
the impolicy and inhumanty of the slave trade,
and its consequences, when they knew their So
vereign was a smuggling slave merchant, divid-
ing the spoil with large number of his own
subjects, and those of other nations The
South too has always shown itself more ready
than the North, to get rid CT the negro by reno
pol and colonization i'll Africa, or elsewhere, II
II be found practicable. The great mass OF
Southern slave holders resist general emancipa-
ton, not because it is inconsistent with their
interest, viewed as question Of political eco
nomy but because they know it to be utterly
incompatible with their safety. Upon the con-
sequences of the immediate, indscrimnate
emancipation of the slaves Of the South, or
emancipation by any other than very graduate
methods, | am not disposed to dwell. All So
Der minded men, however, indulge the apPre-
hension, that were the slaves thus let loose,
they might be led to think and feel like the ne
groes of St. Domingo, butchering the whole
European population, in gratitude for the de-
cree of the French Assembly of 1871, declaring
them ''free and equal'' to the whites Who
does not know, that every rash movement Of
the North endangers the safety of the South,
and compels further resort to precautionary
measures of safety, thus subiecting the slave to
an abridgement of right and enjoyment which
had never been thought of but for the gratut-
Gus obtrusion of Northern interference
1t is al ready perceptible, that in the West In
dies, unless other systems of servtude, the
neto types Of slautry already introduced, should
check the tendencies of the emancipation act,
imposed upon the Islands against their consent,
the European race, yielding to the negro, is
likely to become extinct And should the
North impose a similar emancipation upon the
South, in violation of the compromise of the
Constitution, among the immediate and neces-
sary effects, sooner or later, the breaking up OF
the American Confederation and the destruction
Of the negro race in the South must be number
cd. Look at the Niaroons Of Jan2ica: ever