The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1856-11-06
THE CURSES OF FREEDOM.
From the same paper, October p, Is56.


From the days of Wilberforece to those of
Garrison, abolition has impressed itself on
modern civilization and to a greater or less ex-
tent has directed and controlled human prog
ress. Ii is time to look around and calculate
what of good and what of evil it has effected
time to test its worth by the experience of its
operations, its fruits, and its prospects.
Its first great and seemingly praiseworthy
object and achievement was the abolition of
the African slave trade in Europe and Ameri-
ca. 1t was wonderfully successful, in procu.
ring laws to punish this trade as piracy, in Ia
king it out of the hands of honest law-abding
men, who carried it on under the regulations
of law, and with approach to humanity.
The law required them to fit out their slavers
so as TO secure some degree of comfort to the
captured Africans, and selfinterest induced
them 10 heed the law, and preserve the lives
and health of their slaves, in order to swell the
profits of their trade. But, despite the laws
prohibiting the traffic, the trade continued to
be carried on actively as ever. 1t was
merely transferred from the hands of honest
men, TO those of dishonest, reckless, cruel and
unprincipled men. The penalty of death for
the prosecution of the trade induced the fitting
out OF slsvers, with little attention to provision
or comfort, IN order to escape suspicion and
detection, and occasioned the most cruel hasty
and reckless mode of conducting the trade
Wilberforce and his compeers found the slave
trade in the hands of selfish, rapacious. and
unfeeling men. They transferred it to the
hands of wicked, unprincipled, cruel, human
monsters. They found it an inhuman trade,
and made it a diaboical one. 1t was, however.
a natural operation, that has proceeded, steadi
iy and with trihing Interruptions, from the DAYS
of Joseph and his brethren to the present. hour
HaH hoep n
men, sound philosophers and statesmen, they
would have thrown MOI of legal regulation
around this trade, not have attempted to sex.
pei nature" BY arresting It.
This was the first great exploit of "rose-
water philanthropy" /, preached visionary
and impracticsble humanity, and forged chains
and .begat crime, and groans, and tears and
blood
Its next darling object was to emancipate
the slaves of America. In this, also, it was
wonderfully successful. 1t stirred up servile
instruction in st. Domingo, occasioned the
massacre of thousands of the whites, and Of
tens of thousands of the blacks, yet it achieved
the liberation Of the negroes. Gradually. this
once most fruitful island in the West Indies
has, under negro administration, become bar
rem, and the liberated negroes idle, wandering
pagans and savages. They have lost much il
losing their masters; and the civilized world
more in the sugar, coffee, and other crops
which they produced when governed by those
masters.
England followed suit 10 France with like
results. Now, most Of the negroes of the Yves;
Indies are iberated-have ceased TO work, and
become savsges. So, also, in Mexico and
throughout South America, except Brazil, the
slaves have been emancipated-an their late
owners are impoverished and degraded. In
the mean time, the demand for tropical fruits,
and the peculiar products of slave labor, rapid
ly increased in Europe. Sugar and coffee and
a large supply of cotton clothing became, even
with the poor, necessities Of life. But the num-
Der of the poor whites was increasing, and their
wages consequently diminishing. AS these
slave products became dearer, the poor whites
had to labor harder and longer to obtain them !;
and restitution, famine, and starvation, were
daily occurrences The sbolitionists had i'm
sosed on the whites the shackles which they
removed from the blacks.
Practical, selfish, moDey-loving men took
advantage Of this-Oarried on the old African