The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1856-09-04
THE NATIONAL ERA: WASHINGTON D. c. SEPTEMBER 1856.

ing up the Slavery principle, admitting other
forms of Slavery to be wrong, and yielding up
the authority of the Bible, and of the history,
practices, and experience of mankind. HUI
man experience showing the universal success
of slave society, and the universal failure of free
society, was unavailing to them, because they
were precluded from employing it, by admitting
Slavery in the abstract to be wrong. The de-
fence of mere negro Slavery involved them in
still greater difficulty. The laws of all the
Southern States justified the holding white men
in Slavery, provided that through the mother
they were descended, however remotely, from
a negro slave. The bright mulattoes, according
to their theory, were wrongfully held in Slavery
"The line of defence, however, is changed
now, and the North is completely cornered, and
dumb as an oyster. The South now maintains
that Slavery is right, natural, and necessary.
1t shows that all divine and almost all human
authority ustifes it. The South further char
ges, that the little experiment of free society
in Western Europe has been, from the begin
ming, a cruel failure, and that symptoms of
failure are abundant in our North. While it is
far more obvious that negroes be slaves than
whites-for they are only fit to labor, not to d.
rect-yet the principle of Slavery is in itself
right, and does not depend on difference of
complexion. Difference of race, of lineage, of
| language, of habits and CUSTOMS all tend to
render the institution more natural and durable !;
| and although slaves have been generally white,
still the masters and slaves have generally been
of different national descent. Moses and Aris-
totle the earliest historians are both authorities
in favor of the difference in race, but not of
color"
Ponder we'll the following extracts from a
work published in Virginia, entitled Sociology,
or Free Society Failure" by George Fitz-
hugh. This book has been highly commended
by the Richmond Enquirer and Examiner, and
by the Democratic " press of the South gener-
ally:
"Make the laboring man the slave of one
man, instead of the slave of society, and he
would be far better off," 1.-TWO hundred years
of Liberty have made white laborers pauper
banditti. Free society has failed, and that which
is not free must be substituted"
"Say the Abolitionists, Man ought not to
have property in man. What a dreary, cold,
bleak, inhospitable world this would be, with
such doctrine carried into practicep 4
Slavery has been too universal not to be ne
cessary to nature, and man struggles in vain
against nature X Free society is a
failure. We shareholders say, you must recur
to domestic Slavery, the Oldest the best, and
most common form of socialism,
Free society is monstrous abortion, and
Slavery, the healthy, beautiful, and natural be-
ing which they are trying unconsciously to
adopt" "The slaves are governed far better
than the free laborers at the North are governed.
Our negroes are not only better off as to physi-
cal comfort than free laborers, but their moral
condition is better"
"We do not adopt the theory that Ham was
the ancestor of the negro race. The Jewish
slaves were not negroes and to confine the
Justification of Slavery to that race, would be to
weaken its Scriptural authority, and to lose the
whole weight of profane authority-for we
read of no negro Slavery in ancient times"
"Slavery, black or white, is right and
necessary"
mature has made the weak, in mind or body,
slaves" "The wise and virtuoas,
the brave, the strong in mind and body, are
born to command"
"Men are not born entitled to equal rights.
1t would be far nearer the truth to say, that
some were born with saddles on their backs,
and others booted and spurred to ride them
and the riding does them good They need
the reins, the bit, and the spur Life and
Liberty are not inalienable' The Declare.
ton of Independence is exuberantly false, and
aborescently fallacious."
Inc iOuOWlHg statement OF the pO6ltOn winch
the Northern Democracyis expected to occupy
is from the Charleston Mercury. The same
idea has been repeated by the Richmond En-
qairer and other Southern journals, from which
we have heretofore quoted:
"The ensuing Presidential canvass, which
will probably determine the fate of the Union,
will turn almost solely on the question of State
Equality. None can consistently or efectirelv
contend for &ate Equality, aohO do not hold
that the institutions of the South and the social
forms Of the South are equally rightful, legiti-
mate, moral, and promotioe of human hapsi-
ness and aoellbeing, witA those Of the North.
If slave society be inferior in these respects to
free society, we of the South are wrong and
criminal in proposing to extend it into new
territory, and the North right in exerting itself
to the utmost to prevent such extension"
Well, are the Democracy of Pennsylvania,
and of the free North, willing to occupy this
ground? Do they think Slavery as good as
Freedom, and as deserving of preservation
Do they think it right to make slaves of poor
white men? If they do not, they should at
once abandon Buchanan for that is the plat.
form on which he stands, and that is the policy
by which his Administration (if he should be
electsd) would be governed. He is the crea.
ture of the Slave Power. Slavery is the back
bone of his strength.