The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1855-03-29


States the produce of which he proposes 10 ad-
NIT on more favorable terms than ever
II affirm, then, that there exists in the United
States slaye-trade not less odious or demorail-
zing, nay, do in my conscience believe, more
odious and more demoralizing than that which is
carried on between Africa and Brazil North Car
DINA ind Virginia are to Louisiana and Alabama
what Congo is to Rio Janero. The slave states OF
the Union are divided into two classes-the breed
ing States, where the human beasts OF burden IN
crease and multiply, and become strong for labor;
and the sugar and cotton States, to which those
beasts of burden are sent to be worked to death.
To what an extent the traffic in man is carried on,
we may learn by comparing the census OF 1880
with the census of 1910. North Carolina ana
Virginia are, as / have said, great breeding
States During the ten years from 1880 to la4o,
the slave population of North Carolina was
almost stationary. The slave population OF Viz
ginia positively decreased Yet, both In North
Carolina and Virginia, propagation was, during
those ten years, going On fast The number OF
births among the slaves in those States exceeded
by hundreds of thousands the number of the
deaths. What, then, became of the surplus
Look to the returns from the Southern States,
and from the States whose produce the right
honorable baronet proposes to admit with re-
duced duty or with no duty at all, and you will
see. You will find that the increase in the
breeding States was barely sufficient to meet
the demand of the consuming States. In
Louisiana, for example, where we know that the
negro population is worn down by cruel toll,
and would not, if left to itself, keep up its num-
bers there were, in 1890, l07 900 slaves in
ls4O ITO 900. In Alabama the slave popula-
ton during those ten years much more than
doubled; il rose from III 1000 to 253, 900. In
Mississippi it actually tripled; it rose from
$1,000 10 10000. So much for the extent OF
this slaye-trade. And as to its nature ask any
Englshman who has ever travelled in the South
ern States. Jobbers go about from plantation
to plantation, looking out for proprietors who
are not easy in their circumstances, and who
are likely to sell cheap. black boy is picked
up here, and a black girl there. The dearest
ties of nature and of marriage are torn aSunder
as rudely as they were ever torn asunder by
any slaye-captain on the coast OF Guinea.
gang of three or four hundred negroes is made
up; and then these wretches, handcufed, fetter-
: ed, guarded by armed men, driven south
ward as you would drive, or, rather, as you
would not drive, herd of oxen to Smthfeld,
that they may undergo the deadly labor of the
sugar mill near the mouth of the Mississippi.
A very few years of that labor in that climate
suffice to send the stoutest African to his grave
But he can well be spared. While he is fast
sinking into premature old age, negro boys in
{ Virginia are growing up as fast into vigorous
making in Louisiana. God forbid that should
extenuate the horrors of the slave-trade in any
FORM But do think this its worst FORM. Bad
enough it is, that civilized men should sail to an
uncivilized quarter of the world where Slavery
exists, should there buy wretched barbarans,
and should carry them away to labor in dis
tant land bad enough But that civilized
man, baptized man, a man proud of being
citizen of free State a man frequenting a
I Fhri- tian oh, oh ell
portation, and, if the whole horrible truth must
be told, should even beget slaves for exporta-
{ ton; should see children, sometimes his own
children, gambling around him from infancy
should watch their growth should become
familiar with their faces, and should then sell
them for $500 or $500 q head, and send them
to lead in remote country life which is
{ lingering death--a life about which the best
thitg that can be said is, that it is sure to be
short. This does, | own, excite a horror ex-
ceeding even the horror excited by that slave
trade which is the curse Of the African coast.
{ And mark: am not speaking of any rare case,
of any instance Of eccentric depravity. | am
speaking of a trade as regular as the trade in
pigs between Dublin and Liverpool, or the
trade in Goals between the Tyne and the
Thames"
As additional proofs of the action of the Federal
Government in behalf Of Slavery, might speak
further of its tolerance ofSlavery in the Territories
where, by the Constitution, its jurisdiction is
elusive of its unconstitutional and barbarous en-
actments for the rendition of fugitive slaves Of
its persevering negotiations with foreign nations
for the surrender of compensation for, fugitive
slaves of its invasion of Florida TO capture abb
sconding slaves of its interference to prevent
emancipation in Cuba of its duplcity in its in
sincere attempts to suppress the African slave
trade of its refusing to acknowledge the indie
pendence of Hayti, receive an ambassador
from that Government of its annexing Texas to
extend and strengthen Slavery, as avowed by the
leading Southern advocates of that measure of
its invasion of the right of petition the liberty Of
the press, and the freedom of speech, on the sub
ject of Slavery of its admission into the Union
of nine new slave States of its wars Of conquest
for the acquisition of vast area of Territory to
be devoted to Slavery of its recent abrogation
of the Missouri compromise; of its admitting the
principle of property in man. by granting claims
for lost slaves, as was done but two three days
since and worse and more revolving even, al
lowing claims for children of female slaves, that
never were born, as was done in 1884 to certain
citizens of Georgia, for depredations by Greek
Indians, on the principle set forth in the Report
Of the Committee thereon, to wit, that " a much
higher value is set female slave in conss-
quence of an anticipation OF increase--a property
In expectancy in the issue of such female slave"
Reports of Committees, first session, Twenty
Third Congress, No. 40 Thus, sir, the people
of the free States were taxed many thousand dol
lars, by the Government, to pay for slave children
which, happily for them, were never created and
lived only in the prolific imagination of the slave
holder engendered there by his cupidity.
"To such base uses" has this Government
come at laSt-thus has it been perverted, de-
bauched, prostituted, by domineering negro-oc-
racy, now numbering three hundred and fifty
thousand members, and bound together by mo-
nOpoly of at least s 500, 900 900 in human flesh
By this slaveholding oligarchy this Government
has always been controlled and welded, for the
support and extension Of Slavery which, the late
John @. Adams truly said, in speech to his con-
stituents, shortly before his death, constitutes
the very axle around which the administration
of your National Government revolves All its
measures of foreign and domestic policy are but
radiations from that center.
Mr. President: the Constitution under which
we are legislating knows no man by his color,
creed, or cline. Based on the great principle of
natural law, as enunciated in the national decla-
ration-the exact equality of all men in natural
rights-it reads ave the people, do ordain and
establish this Constitution" thus emanating from
all, and embracing all within its ample scope.
The illustrious men who formed it, had not made
the profound discovery that human rights depend
on complexion, or any other physical peculiarity.
They embarked in the revolutionary struggle
with the motto emblaZoned their banner-all
men equal in rights under its inspiration
they conquered, and came out Of the contest
declaring it to be the boast and pride of Ameri-
ca, that the rights for which she had contended
are the rights of human nature" Deeply imbued
with these noble sentiments, they formed the
Constitution; and, SO far from admitting therein
the possibility that man can be made property,
they not only discarded the odious term, slave
bat went so far to substitute the term service
instead of servitude n bein0 understood IN a. Tho