The western Democrat. [volume] (Charlotte, N.C.) 1852-1870, 1856-01-22
THE SOUTHERN SYSTEM OF
LABOR.

ed. 1ney nre InoSe WIN CoHCeA'o til'A' "'''N n
slavery is an evil-that it is wrong econom-
ically, politically and morally-but that
owing to imperiOus circumstances, it should
be tolerated for a time. Unfortunate y,
Mr. Clay, who, with all his acknowledged
craftsmanship, rather skinned over the
surface of great questions than divcd to the
bottom, was misled into this weak and nam
| by-pamby view of the subject; and his de-
fence Of the South was scarcely less dan
gerous than Stewards open and formal at
tacks.
| We are glad to sec every day indications
that the Southern people are determined to
discOuntenance this whining tone and sup
plicating cant in their behalf, by weak or
! treacherOus advocates WHO take the South
before Il Northern tribunal for trial, and
open the pleading with q confession of guilt.
We trust the political days of such are
numbered, and that they will be pushed into
the harmless obScurity which they merit
John C. Calhoun well knew the dangerous
tendency of this species of lcft-handcd VIM
dication, and it is mainly due TO his philo-
sophie mind and mastery craftsmanship
that black slavery at the South has been
placed on tho solid basis, moral. political
and economical, which it now occupies
! BY the laws of mental affinity, his thought
| has attracted the best thought of the cOun-
try, and of all parties, until philosophy,
! craftsmanship, as well as enlightened phil
anthropy are all compelled to proclaim that
the blacky SLAYER of the South is right i'll
principle and cxpcdent in policy. Upon
| this basis the question must be kept or
yielded altogether.
Northern and English Philanthropists and
fanatics who are so eager to reform the South.
act upon the assumption that the negro is a
black white man, and qualified to live i'll
perfect social and po litical equality with
the white or Caucasian "a ces-a fallacy that
we may expect to be established when the
leopard changes his spots, and the sooty
Ethiopian is washed white in the fountains
of the Nile. Meantime the moral justifica-
ton of the South lies in facts against which
fanaticiem and cant are both pOwerlesS.-
They are these, TO wit, that the negro is in
ferior to the white man by nature and by
destiny; that he never can be his equal I'M
til the laws OfGod are abrogated; and that
wherever and whenever the two come in
juxtapositiOn, dominion on one side and ser
vitude on the other, arc the Legitimate re-
latiOns between them.
As political institution, we find black
slavery blessing, in the fact that it pre-
vents the virtual enslavement of any class
of the whites, and obviates an evil which
has been the fruitful source of nearly all the
agrarian movements and sanguinary revOlu-
tions which have rent and convulsed socie
ty-that of want and famine in the poor
class. In free society, or where there is no
slave population, contest is always wag
ing between capital and labor-between the
rich and poor classes, the tendency of which
is to make the rich richer and the poor
poorer, until extremity drives the latter TO
satiate at once their vengeance and their
| want by slaughter and rapine. Free socie-
ty, no matter under what form of govern
ment, has not been able to find remedy for
this evil, and its continually recurring catas-
trophe. The quaint spectre of famine is
ever haunting the nominally free society of
Western Europe, and there is not one of its
| thrones that is able to stand before tie mad
cry for bread. But under the system of
| well regulated black slavery, there can be
10 scarcity, no famine, and consequently no
wild cry for bread agrarian outbreaks, and
carnage.
In an economical view, black slavery is a
blessing-indeed. an institution indiSpensa-
bic to the agriculture of the South at least.
In the free States, men are inclined to shun
agriculture, the simplest but the rudest,
most repulsive and least remunerated of all
lubors, and crowd into the professions,
trades, arts, &C., at the expense of the pro-
ductive resources of the country. The eff
feet is, a constant tendency to decline in
agriculture, the decentralization of the labor
ing classes, an increase in the price of food,
scarcity, and possibly famine.
The tendency to neglect agriculture would
be much greater in southern and tropical
countries, where the whites cannot endure
| field labor, and the blacks will not work
| without a master. The present condition
of Jamaica and Hsyti are illustrations. Mex
leo is fast verging To the same condition.
and all serve to convince us that on the ces-
sation If slave labor directed by intelligence.
the most productive countries in the world
will begin to assume their wild fauna and
fora. and to lapse into savagery. Black
slavery secures the South from such doom.
while it guarantees her against poverty and
famine, and the social and political evils
which they engender. 1t is only that which
can yet restore Jamaica and Hayti and yet
save Cuba from desolation; and it IL that
also, and an accession of new white blood.
which are necessary to regonerate Mexico.
give her political stability, and do justice
to her natural resources. History, geo.
graphy, political economy, abound in evil