Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1854-07-08
THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE.

1esterday, IN the Senate OF tho United States,
notice was given by Mr. Seward of his intention to
bring in bill regulating navigation to the coast
OF Africa, the object of which is to break up the
slave trade now carried on in American vessels.
This bill will place the discussion of an arrange
mont for preventing the slave trade on its proper
ground. If we are to withdraw our vessels of
war from the African coast ON the ground of their
inehciency in checking the trade in negroes, we
ought to sec to it that the most effecual means
which remain for restraining our citizens from en-
gaging in that foul traffic adopted and enforced.
The true motive for Mr.. Slidcrs proposal to cease
watching the coast of Africa for slaves is that a
standing, emphatic and practical condemnation of
the slave trade may be abrogated. To get rid of
that is the first step, to repeal all penalties the
trade will be the next. Mr.. Stewards bill will an
ticpate this project and bring up Immediately the
question to which the authors of the scheme desire
to pass by degrees. as they can prepare the minds
of the people for it.
When the true question is at length reached, we
shall find the champions of the slave trade ready
with their arguments to prove that it is quite as
innocent as the trade IN any other domestic animals.
Already the southern prints have broken ground
in this controversy. The Richmond Wig already
expresses its horror at the barbarities which the
aboriginal negroes Of Africa inaict upon each
other. They catch, sell and buy each other, as
negroes are caught bought and sold here; they
are sometimes murdered, and human sacrifices are
offered to their deites. To rescue them from these
horrors we told that it is the dictate of hnman-
ty to bring them in chains across the Atlantic to
be bought and sold, worked and Hogged in this
land of liberty and gospel light.
Such are the topics on which the southern party
already begin to expatiato with a good deal of
boldness, and which will soon become familiar to
those who read the debates in Congress The
slave trade will soon he as impudenty defended as
the institution of slavery itself. We sometimes
hear of mawkish philanthropy; and if there be
any professions of love to the human race to which
the term mawkish may be applied with more pro
priety than Others If there be any pretensions to
superior humanity, particularly calculated to nau-
seate and disgust they heard on those occasions
! when mean and cruel sclfinterest seeks to hide
itself under the mask Of good will towards those
whom it marks its victims. OF this sort of phi
lnnthropy we shall have enough before the contro-
versy, which is now just opened, is brr lght to q
! close.
| The main danger which the extreme southern
party, the SUCCESSORS of The nullifers of twenty
years since, apprehend for the scheme of q great
slave empire, lies in the vast number of free labor
ers who are constantly migrating to the unoccuped
parts OF our country, and who, by the new facili.
ties of transportation, in few days and at tri-
! fling expense are set down in the wilderness of our
vast interior. Already mighty caravan Of this
class have been sent forward to occupy Kansas and
secure it for freedom. If the scheme of a separate
concderacy Of slave states is to be carried out this
danger must be provided against. The new terri
tory to be acquired from Mexico must be guarded
from the rruption of population of free laborers
! from the n North and from tie Old Wcric,
! The most obvious way of counteracting the effect
of this emigration is the renewal of the slave trade
If the old world contributes aid to the cause Of
| freedom by sending freemen to occupy our new
| territory, it must be made to help the cause OF
slavery by supplying the new world with Il popu-
lation of slaves. If Kansas be settled by tho
friends of free institutions, what shall prevent the
same machinery from being used to hedge out sa-
very from any other territory in which it has not
fully established itself? The enterprising young
planters of the south vii, not be able to provide
themselves with sufficient gangs of black people
at the pens of the domestic shareholders. Cargoes
of them must be brought from Africa the flag of
the United States must protect this detestable com
merce and all the ports of our Republic on the
Gulf Of Mexico must become as infamous slave
marts as ever were the ports Of the Barbary
States.
u To carry out fully their plan of powerful slave
empire, which, in process of time, is to detac
itself from the free states and hold the mouths OF
all our great rivers from the Delaware to the Mis-
sissipp, and still further SOUTH with all their bays
and estuaries, the revival of the slave trade is nee
essary, and the movement from which that resul
is expected is already begun. 1t forms one of the
same series of measures to which belongs The ac
QUESTION of Cuba. IF that island should become
ours, may expect to the slave trade pursued
on its coasts with an activity Of which We have
hitherto had no cxample-N. Y. Ere Post.