New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1854-07-03
THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE.

That circumstances alter cases is an old enough
saving. but there is more striking Illustration OF
its truth than the fact that the slave trade which in
Virginia and South Carolina is legitimate business,
sheltered by the Constitution protected by the Fed
eral Government and justified by the sanctions OF
the peculiar religion there in vogue, should be great
crime in fact piracy punishable with death, so soon
as il passes the boundary OF the United States. 1t
is hard to see what is the essential difference between
buying negro slave ct Lagos or buying one at New
Orleans indeed, taking everything into considers
ton, the former would seem to be altogether the
more laudabe, humane and christian act of the two
The Lagos negro is not only being less sensitive
and refined than his American counterpart and can
bear the whacks and fortunes that Legree, who buys
him may choose to inAict, with comparatively little
suffering; he not only parts from his mother and bro
Tiers, or his wife and children with infinitely less
pain; but on the other hand, his transfer to white
master, and to the ciyilizing influences of land of
sabbatbs and sanctuary privileges, opens to him the
possibility of degree of mental culture and religious
elevation to which in Dahomey or Ashantee he could
never aspire. To the wild, brutal African it is thena
real gain to be reduced 10 Slavery, if only he be car
ried of to truly religious and cultivated country
while to the native of Virginia or Maryland there is
no greater calamity than that Of being torn from the
home of his childhood and the objects Of his affections
in order to be "sold South" swept away in the
gloomy and never returning current of the American
slave trade.
Indeed it is impossible so to state the argument that
it shall not appear that the domestic traffic in negroes
being right in the eye of God and honorable in the
sight Of men, the trade in negroes from Africa is much
more right and honorable. If American Slavery is
good thing there is greater inconsistency and alb
surdty than the law which makes il piracy TO bring
men from Africa for sale slaves in the United
States; and now while other compromises are being
obterated from legislation il is only logical that
the one prohibiting the slave trade should also be
erased so that the business may be resumed openly
and under such specsl laws and official supervision
will relieve it from the nhumanites and horrors that
formerly covered it with odiunL The immigration
of whites from Europe into the northern States is
regulated, and there is no good reason why the i'm
portation OF blacks from Africa into the southern
States might not be conducted with equal care and
equal freedom from mortality and suffering.
Not only is the resumption of the slave trade held
up by Of the clearest and abest writers of the
daily press in the southern States as object TO be
desired and sought, but it is deliberately and power
fully though very shrewdy the las, number
of The Southern Quarterly Rerier, whose ressonings
have been reechOed by many of the lesser organs Of
opinion in the slave-driving part Of the Union. The
writer shows by facts innumerable and undeniabe
that the condition of the African at home is in many
parts Of the continent least OF the most fero
cious and diabolical savagism constantly marked by
instances of sanguinsry brutality and delirious
perstton. From the people of the Gold Coast to
the Hottentos al the tribes declared 70 be worth
less for industry destitute of all that best distir-
gushes man from the brute and utterly unaffected
by the progress of the world elsewhere At the same
time part of the negro has been advanced
"n morals and happiness as that portion which has
"been expatriated and that part which most eIces
sin all that makes approach TO civilization. is that
(which remains in slavery in the southern States OF
"ths Union" This being the case. how deplorable
the blindness that refuses the truth concerning
ga people whose savage and shocking bsrbarties
land loathsome habits and horrid crimes ere sup
posed to establish condition preferable to that
of slavery to the white man that the fleets of civil
'ized Europe and America employed 70 maintain
s'and perfect them in it," And how laudable that
enlightened philanthropy which devotes itself to the
removal of this bndness in order that the fleets and
all other hinirsnces may be abolished and as msny a.
possible Of the Fetishv orshipers and booddrnkers
Of Area ba caught sni removed TO thst approach