Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1854-11-18
From the Charleston Mercury Y, Nov.
THE SLAVE-TRADE.

Cheapness of labor is essential to the material
progress of every people. But this can only OBJ
tain with the abundance of supply. Now, slave
labor is, and ought to be, the cheapest kind Of la
Dor. 1t will only become otherwise, when
foreign and hostile influences are made TO bear
against it. The abolition of the Slave Trade, by
cutting off the supply, tends to this result. Slave,
were never before so high in the South. They
have within the last few years, advanced 80 per
cent in price, and, in som instances, even more.
To what is this attributable? Is it to an increase
in the value Of their pioductionsS We think not.
Taking Tie three great staples, cotton, rice, and
sugar, rs the standards, we can discover no such
increase in the profits Of their culture as would
warrant this advance. Indeed, it may well he
doubted, whether planting, throughout the South,
during the last ten years, has been ms profitable as
for the same preceding period. 1t has, certainly.
not been more so, and the purchaser now Of slaves,
at six hundred dollars each, has no promise of bet
ter returns for their labor, than when he bought
them at four hundred dollars. The slave can
neither cultivate nor produce more now than for
merly. Thus, so far as the planting interests is
concerned, the anomaly is presented. OF an adj
vance in the market value Of the capital employed,
without any corresponding increase in Its profits.
We must, therefore, seek lsewhere for the real
cause Of tie present high price IF slaves.
The influx Of gold from California, in swelling
the cost of almost every species of property, nee
essarily affected that of slaves. But there is a
reason deeper ana lcNDnu thlS. II Is lhe ScIfCHU
Of rs compared with the multiplying demands .J0i
MJor; demands, too, SO imperative that they mus
he supplied ut almost any cost. In the last few
years, internal improvements in the South have
been prosecuted On a scale greater than ever be-
fore. With the consciousness Of her resources,
has come the determination to develop them. < 4
1t is needless t. disguise the fact that the insti
tuition Of Slavery is threatened 10y internal danger
lmpcri!ed and assailed by a host of external enc.
mics, its last and only hope in a hearty and cfec.
tive union within. Nowhere can discord be more
fatal-nOwllere the maxim divide and conquer
more completely triumphant. Union of the South
in defense of Slavery, has been, for the last thirty
years, growing more and more urgent, and the
want of it has embOldened every attack, and
brought upon us the crisis, to which none but the
most untiinking can be Indifferent. In the final
struggle, which must come, sooner CT later, when
Abolition, flushed with past %triumphs, and inspired
by her submission, shall sweep on to its grand,
diabolical consumation-thc subiugation and ruin
Of the South, MnioR, union will be her only refuge.
To secure this against the trials of that %evcntful
day, should he the aim Of the statesman and pat
riot. 1t must be a union founded in the interests
of every man, woman, and child-intcrests 50 par
amount and so universal, as to call forth the stern
est energies.
Slavery is, and, so long as the South preserves
her existence must continue to be. tie basis At all
property ralueS IN the South. Every aggression
which weakens il, affects all other kinds of prop
erty, and It's abolition will involve the ruin Of every
interest, even the most remote. The rich will lie
robbed Of his abundance, and the poor of his "lit-
tie all" No change of investment will save. The
owner, and the non-owner will fall, side by side
beneath the general ruin, which, like n vast confa-
grafton, dcvonrs the palace and the but. The
means of the latter, though not invested in slaves,
are staked upon that which derives all its value
from them and, when the foundation crumbles,
the supcrstructure must follow. When we speak
of Abolition destroying the South, it is of a v whole
peoplc-their civilization, property, hopes-all
sinking together. How false and fatal, then, the
policy which cxcitcs the most delusi\ hopes weak
ems the South in the unity and strength Of its re-
sistance to Abolition, and makes men lukewarm
in defense of an institution, in whose ruin they
must be swallowed up? And how miserably
short sighted are they who fancy that there is nc
danger to them or their property, in submissions
and concessions which prepare the way of fanati-
cism?
But, increase the supply of labor, and thus
cheaper the cost of slaves, and the South will es-
cape this internal peril. The number of slave
owners would multiply, the direct interests in its
preservation would be more universally diifused,
and that great necessity of the South-union in
defense Of Slavery, more readily accomplished. If
1t were possible, every MAI in her limits should
be a slave-owner. There would then be no chances,
that "Brutus,' and like incendiary publications,
would find response in any quarter Of the South,
exciting one class against another, and deceiying
a part into believing thu t their fate can be different
from that of the whole.