Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1846-10-17

tofore convinced that its comparative feebleness
made the guarded and strict integrity of the Fedora
Constitution its great refugee safety precious tc
all but trPly necessary to t-has allowed itself tC
be trepanned into the idea that il was, of a sudden
to find far more certain and permanent security
in series of acts which amount to nothing less
than total abandonment of every thing like cons
tutional restraints upon Congress and the Executive
As if that copious phrase, To extend the area OF
freedom was not omen enough for its institutions
as II TO widen our territory were not necessarily
to aggravate IFS own comparative weakness, the
South has turned suggesfer of territorial rapine and
of policy which must either SILVER this Confede-
racy to pieces, sink it in debt, or turn it into
great Military Empire.
These errors, however, deplorable for all, and
especially deplorable for the South as they are,
have, must insist, been by no means the peculiar
crime of the South nor of the shareholders. They
were at least widely sustained in the free States
| New Hampshire, Maine, the great Northern States
| of New York and Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois,
Indiana, and much more nearly Ohio than North
Carolina, lent their aid to Annexation, as if Free
dom itself were at stake The very fanatics of
itself, the measure with which it is reproached
fewer votes than in the free States of the North
Except Louisiana and Georgia, the Wings lost
upon it no Southern State which they were accus-
toned TO carry. Our friends of Massachusetts
should see, them that their resentment is due far
more TO Locotocoism in the North and West than
to slavery. The wickedness then perpetrated and
now in such daring progress, and is that Of
Party, and nothing else. A the South in
vengeance for it is not only totally unjust, but can
only serve to fling that section more completely into
the arms of its friend, the one-eyed giant of the
cave who means, after licking up the Wings and
washing them down with the wine which the South
is furnishing him, obligingy and gratefully to make
this wise Ulysses of slavery his last and daintiest
meal. But let us proceed to Mr.. JEFFERSON, and
see what he taught as to slavery.
la that statesman's "Notes on Virginia." writ
ten, his preface informs us, in 1884, and correct
ed in 1892 occurs, about midway in his answers
to the fourteenth query, passage for the history of
which we must first quote another, in his letter to
Mr.. JARED SPARKS, published in the fourth volume
of his Correspondence, and also attached as an ap-
pendix to the speech of his grandson (Mr. JEFFER-
SON RANDOLPH, administrator de bonis non of his
literary and political reliques in that same Virginia
debate twice already alluded to. In this letter,
dated February 4, 1924, after arguing show that
the plan OF African colonization can never rid US of
slavery, he proceeds thus:
'There is, think, way in which it can be done that
Is by emancipatng the after born leaving hem due
pensaon, with their mothers until their services are worth
their maintenance, and then putting them to industrious
equations, until proper age for deportation This the
result of reflections the subject five and forty years ago.
have yet been able conceive any other prac
cable plan 1t sketched in the Notes Virginia, under
the fourteenth query The estimated value of the born
infant low (say twelve dollars and fifty cens) that il
would probably be yielded by the gratis and would
thus reduce the six hundred millions OF dollars the first head
of expense, to thyseve millions and half leaving only
the expenses OF nourhment while with the mother and of
transportation And from what fund these expenses be
furnished Why from that of the lands which have been
coded by the States needing this relief And ceded
consideration, for the part but that of the general
good of the whole These cessons already constitute
fourth Of the States of the Union II be said that these
lands have been sold; the properly of the citizens
composing those States and the money long and
expended But equivalent of lands the territories
acquired may be appropriated that object much
least may be sufficient and the Object although i'm
poran TO the slave States highly the others also if
they serious in their arguments the Missouri question
The slave States too, If interested, would also
tribute more by their grauitous liberation thus taking
themselves alone the first and heaviest item of expense
In the plan skeched in the Notes Virginia. partl-
cular place Of asylum specified because thought
possible that in the revolutionary state of America then
menced might open within practicable
distance This has happened. ST. Domingo has be-
Independent and with population of that color only
and II the public papers TO he credited their Chief offers
TO pay their passage receive them free citizens and
provide them employment This leaves them for the gene
raj confederacy, expense but of with the
few years. and would CALL Of course, for moderate APP
preparation of the lands
This, then, establishes the fact that the plan of
which he speaks in his" Notes on Virginia is his
o"n. He is there reciting the provisions of Re-
vlsed Code for Virginia, which, along with two
other public commissioners for that purpose, he pre-
: pared in the year l777. He says that it embrac-
ed also some alterations Of the laws among which
was the following:
"To emancpate all slaves born after passing the act The
bill reported by the revisers does itself contain this propo
son but amendment containing it prepared be
offered to the Legislature whenever the bill should be taken
up and further directing that they should with their
parents certain age then be brought up the public ex-
pense, lage, arts Sciences according their geniuses
till the females should be eighteen and the males twenty one
years Of age when they should be coonzed such place
the circumstances Of the time should render proper
ing them out with implements Of household and Of the
hnndcrah arts Seeds pairs Of the useful domestic animals
&c TO declare them free and independent people, and
tend to them alliance and protection till they have acqur
ed strength and 10 send vessels the same time to other
parts OF the world for equal number Of white inhabitants
to induce whom to migrate hther proper encouragement
to be proposed"
In his Memoirs Of himself prepared in 1872 y he