Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1848-08-31

ity enjoins upon the servant submission to
the will of the master, il justfies the master
in extorting unwilling obedience and unre-
Quilted labor from the slave.
But it has been said, that the South nei-
Their expects or desires the introduction of
Slavery into the new territory, because its
soil and climate are unsuited to the growth
of those vegetable products, for the culture
of which alone, slave lavor can be advanta-
gously employed. Oregon, California and
New Mexico, it is urged, lie without the
natural limits of Slavery, and the institution
cannot exist in those provinces, because it
is excluded by physical conditions and the
economical law of profit and loss which they
dictate. it is assumed, that none Of the
sub-tropical plants usual cultivated by slave
labor, rice, cotton, or the sugar-canc, will
thrive in the new territories, which are a.
dapted only to grain-growing, and pastoral
husbandry, and will therefore be inhabited
and titled only by freemen. But the whole
of this supposition is fallacy. 1t is not
true, that profitable slavery is confined to any
particular range of climate, or any particulaE
species of agricultural industry. Did the
law of profit and loss, as regulated by phys
ical circumstances, forbid the exercise Of
Slavery in the dissimilar climates of Greece
and Rome, in Anglo-Saxon Britain, or in
ancient Teutonic and Scandinavian Europe
Does it forbid it, at this moment, in Mo-
hammedan Turkey, from whose mild code
of servile law the christian South might bor-
row useful lessons in frozen Russia in
our own Maryland and Virginia and Ken
lucky? Sir, Slavery is everywhere profita-
bic under the management Of a prudent
master, and especially so, in all new coun-
tries to which emigration is tending, and
where the amount of labor to be done is
greater than the force at hand to perform it.
Doubtless 1t is true, that most men who in
herlt property in slaves diminish, rather
than augment, their patrimonial estates.-
But this is just as true in relation to capital
invested in any other way. Capital employ
ed in any industrial enterprise, in mining,
in manufacturing, in agriculture, in naviga-
ton, in commerce, in a majority of cases
fails to yield any increase. But does this
prove, that these branches of industry are
in themselves Improbable BY no means.
1t only proves that most men are unthrifty
managers, and it will not be found that, in
general, capital invested in slaves, even in
the Northern slave States, is more unproht-
able than when employed in any other spe-
cies of labor. 1t has been charged upon
New England, aud the other Northern
States, as a reproach, that they abolished
Slavery within their limits, only when they
5 discovered it to be no longersa lucrative
: mode of investing capital. :, This is a his
tofical error. Slavery was profitable in
New-Eng land to the last, if pecuniary gain
: lis profit, and it was abolished, not because
= tit was contrary to the economical law OF
9 profit and loss, but because our fathers held
r it, as did then also the wisest and best o
t ttheir Southern brethren, to be contrary tc
f the law of conscience and of God
RI shall not charge upon any gentleman |
r design to deceive the House or the country
j by these representations, but if the dis
e claimer of purpose to extend slavery be
: yond its present limits is sincere, i still
: question whether gentlemen have the au
c thority of their constituents for making it
= cannot doubt that it is the intention of
# powerful party of the South to carry SLAYER,
e to latitude forty-nine, or just so. far as i
d shall not be prohibited by some law of Con
4 gress, and l cannot look upon the late Com
: promise Bill as. any thing but an ingenious
n y devised scheme for accomplishing thai
!, object, under cover Of any apparent respec
/ for law. l have been told that some North
ern gentlemen have been ll-advised enough
f, to plume themselves upon some of the mos
n Objectionable features of that bill, as origi
), nal inventions of their own. This is doubt
r less an honest, perhaps, pardonable vani
n ty, but under some circumstances, we arr
$ unable to trace the operations of our owl
If minds, and therefore it is very possible, that
a what was apparently Northern suggestion
: may have been in fact promoted by South
d ern inspiration.
: But if, in truth, the South holds it to b'
IS undesirable or impractcable to introduc,
: slavery into Oregon, or the whole of New
y Mexico and California, why offend and irri
S tate the North, by insisting on barren
h disputed right, which it is never intended
to exercise l am answered, that prid
IS forbids Southern men to yield in a contro
7, versy provoked by us of the North, and t.
s. capituate in an issue which we have iorcet
t. upon them. But is not this agitation
: necessary, foreseen and foretold result of tn
l. annexation of Texas, and did we force tina
s. hagitious measure upon youl Did con
= trive that cunning and proiiigate artifice b
1t which, while Texas was yet Mexican
l. State, and in spite of its own organic law
n slavery was there extended and perpetuated
Is Did we plot the intrigues whereby the re
IN volt of Texas was first excited, and the
n nursed and encouraged until it ripened int
r, a revolution Did we furnish the men, tn
t, money and the material, by which alon
d Texas was able to resist the arms of Mex
J. co? Did Northern Administration dis
ID pense the patronage, and participate in tn
to corruption, by which annexation, in def
a ance of the solemn resolutions of almos
ly every Northern State Legislature, and tn
al almost unanimous opinion of the Norther
Is people, was introduced into the Democrat
IS platform by the Baltimore cabal, and aftel
Id wards, in palpable violation of the Constitr
ton, carried through both Houses OF Cor
y, gress? Was it to crafty the ambition OF
d, Northern Executive, or to extend tn
IL bounds of Northern Institutions, that
r, unprovoked war has been waged with Me'
~ leo, two hundred millions of dollars wors
| than squandered, thousands of Mexican CT
2 liens butchered for defending their altar
OF and their homes, and myriads Of our CT,