The southern press. [volume] (Washington City [i.e. Washington, D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1851-05-10

growing territory further South. According to
the present ratio of increase, it has been esti-
mated that in fifty years the extreme Southern
States will contain a vast population OF slaves
| far exceeding the whites who own them.
| Now does any man suppose that these dozen
millions or so of slaves can be kept in subsection
under such circumstances II is folly to think
| it, They will then have gained vast addition
to their present average of intelligence; the
dangerous admixture of white blood will be in
fused among ttOn in a greater proportion, and
not all the troops that can be raised and brought
to the field will be sufficient to subdue them.
ION this head read the lesson of st. Domingo.
When the blacks there rose upon their masters,
the proportion between the two was rs 100000
to 10000 The whites were driven from the
country with horrible cruelties, the natural re-
venge of a servile and oppressed race. Power
full armies were sent against these revolted
slaves, millions upon millions were spent for
their subjugation, but in vain. A negro State
now occupies the loveliest and most fertile of
the Antilles, and by natural sentiment Of jeal-
ousy no white is permitted to become citizen
of the country.
A similar fate awaits the Southern extremity
of the United States, unless the whites are wise
betimes. There is no alternative between eman-
cpaton under some form and servile revolt.
Sooner or later it must come, and let those sup
porters ofslavery who are most competent, Judge
whether hnlfa century is too soon for its arrival.
| Free the blacks, or in time they will terribly
free themselves. Men cannot be made chattels
forever--it is unsafe to suppose it. The negroes
of South Carolina and Mississippi may be docile
and submissive now, but they will not be so
always. That is a fatal delusion which cannot
be too soon abandoned.
| The part of wisdom is to labor not for the
perpetuaton Of slavery, but for its removal Its
perpetuation is impossible its removal can best
be accomplished while the dangeris still remote.
We shall perhaps be told that but for the Abo-
litionsts slavery would now be much nearer its
end than it is That may be a convenient reply
to the facts above stated, but it does not affect
their force an atom. We shall be reminded of
the difficulties surrounding the question of eman-
cipaton. No doubt those difficulties are great
enough, but they sink into insignihcance, they
are nothing compared with those connected with
maintaining this institution.
Would to God that our brethren in the South
might open their ears to considerations so mo-
mentous, and that this cloud might be dispelled
from the future of America, Nor do we de-
spair of such miracle. Unpromising as are all
the signs Of public feeling in the slaves States,
We cannot suppose that this nation, the anointed
missionary of democratic liberty, can so signally,
so dsgracefully perish, it must, in the attempt
to perpetuate inhumanities and evils of bondage.
Let US rather prophecy that, without insurrec-
ton or convulsion, the which first rises upon
the twentieth century will not behold a slave
on the whole expanse of the American CONT
nent