The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1856-12-05
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THE hAIhY, DISPATCH
friday rfsrsisS, Dece,pher 9. 1856
The Affscaa slave Traaen ess

Il nE TEAfHd 1850 rsI-...-~-I~
!. friday sfsrsiss, Dees,s1sr 9, 1851
80 rS.scs. slave Trads ana sssthern
- Nv. IA mot scquiesce IN the. inference 4wnicn
a.. ,a,s., Of Sedsh Carolina, and our contempt
- ~. ENQUIRER, draw from the laws OF tn@
$3.50 sta,es declaring the African slave Hads
800 that those laws AK brand ana stigma
7 -, sou,hern slavery. The laws psehioans tns
Asr,csn dave trade were passed By Southern innu
-cea. and IN opposition to the North, which ~ss
in,sres,ed in carrying the negroes from Africa ana
hv y,ho.e mariners and vessels the slave trade 10
am Amos, exclusively conducted Moreover, II
.nv censure upon anybody Is implied oy those
laws. 1, falls exclusively upon the Government OF
ora, Britain. BY whom slaves we're first brought
n the South. against the earnest and continued
remonstrances of the Southern people. The ques>
tiou 10 = very different one between the original
African slave trade, with all its oarnarities ara
horrors, and the existing institutions OF the
South, transmitted TO the present and the past
generations from . remote ancestry, ana wnlch
they have no means of removing, even did they
desire such removal Against the consent OF the
colonists Great Britain forced slavery upon them
il has come down to rs without our choice or agen
cy, without any responsibility therefore on our
parts and without any practical mode of discnars-
ing that responsibility even If 1t existed. We have
here the descendants by many removes OF the AM.
cans originally brought from Africa by Ola anu
New England; We cannot change their conni''on
of servtude. without producing greater evhs 'hAn
any which now exist we are doing tue oes' w
can for them, as we'll As for ourselves his !" %
very different thing from plundering Africans rom
their native country from the horrors OF 'ne in'a
die passage; from the onerous and vexasious pro-
cess of breaking them into. the traces ana making
them useful Iaborers. We are therefore unable 10
sea that the laws making the slave trade piracy
afiix q stigma upon the necessary and humane
institution of Southern servtude as 1t now exists
These are the characteristics of the two, and
they are wide apart as the poles. The slavery OF
the States Is so conditioned and circumsianced,
that the very authority which has interdicted the
slave trade upon the high seas, has passed laws
which recognise its legality and its consfitutonah'y'
IT, therefore on the one hand we may infer from
the acts of Congress denuuciatfon and stigma
of slavery, on the other we may, with much greater
propriety, infer from other of its acts that that
body hiss approved it by recognising it and law
fully defending it.
Some of our Southern States have passed laws
at various times to which we invite the attention
of those from whom we differ in regard to the in,
ference drawn from the United States laws against
the African slave trade We think Georgia, Mis-
sissippi and Louisiana, certainly the two first,
have at different times enacted laws, which prehlo'
tied the introduction of slaves for sale within their
limits and if Louisiana had not one of that kind,
she did prohibit the exhibition Of any slave for sale
who was not certified to rs being honest and bear.
Jag general good character We do not know
that we state the restrictions correctly, but they
were such as to put serious obstacles IN the way
of the introduction Of slaves into those States by
any bu. actual settlers who owned them.
Now laws such IS these, passed by Legislatures
of slaveholding States, might suggest prejudices
agsinst the institution perhsps more pointed than
those growing out Of the Introduction of the slave
trade on the seas. The transportation of slaves
for sale, from one point to another, in the slave
holding States, is q matter iuseparaoie from the
institution and prohibit such transportation ana
sale Is to obssruct its economy In most serious
manner A noted case grew out OF abe mississippi
law few years since, which was carried up to the
Supreme Court at Washington, and there decided
in favor Of the owners Of slaves which had been
introduced and sold in Mississippi contrary to law
The law WAS decided to be unconstitutional So
we find that here the Federal laws, administered
by the Federal Judiciary afforded protection to the
property Ia slaves from the ioeral law of slave.
holding State
But the motives in the cases Of these unwise
State laws, interdicting to some extent the trade
between the States, are no doubt well understood,
., are the motives of the Introduction Of the slave
trade on the seas, and in neither case do we infer
denuneiation and stigma Of slavery as 1t exists
In the South.