The Abbeville banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1847-1869, 1856-09-04
From the Ne.o York Day Book.
TIE ANTFSLAvERY NOTIONS OF WASHING
TON AND JEFFERSON.

From the Neo York Day Book.
THE ANTFssLAvERY MOTIONS OF WASHING
TON AND JEFFERSON.
The organs. Of deusion and imposture
are striving hard to make the people believe
that the sefstyleI Republican party enter
tain the same notion Of negro slavery that
Washington, Jefferson, Patrick Henry, &c,
did seventy years ago. Well, if this were
true, if they really entertained the notions
peculiar to the men of that day, tho fact
Itself would be anything but creditable to
their intelligence, for men SO stupid as to
remain stationary when the nation has so
changed, Or who are so narrow minded and
bigoted rs to retain {; certain view of things,
though these things are thoroughly aud
radically changed from what they were,
certainly have nothing to boast of, and are
the last people i'll tho world that should set
themselves up in this progressive country
ID the leaders OF opinion. But it is false,
utterly false, that the Greeleys and Sum
liners, &c, agree in opinion with Washing
ton aud Jefferson on this subject. On the
contrary, they are just as far from it us
vice is from virtue and treason from patriot
ism.
Washington and Jefferson, and generally
the southern statesmen of that day, con-
founded negroes with "savery," or pres
ence of that race with the social relations
that spring spontaneously from their jux-
tapositon with white men. There were
only few bundled thousand of these peo-
pie, aud most of them in localities where
the labor Of white men (not free men but
white men) was better adapted, aud this
they mistook for Z" slavery" or as this WAS
an evil, they confounded it with the relation
existing between the races. Since then we
have acquired vast regions specifically adap-
ted to negro labor. We have monopolized
the cotton cultivation Of the world, and
these negroes have increased to nearly four
millions, and though Jefferson and Wash
ingtoD, under the then circumstances, ma
turally enough mistook slavery, instead Of
nestoes, as an evil, will any one dare to
BAY that if they Lived now, and under ex-
istlng circumstances, they would be such
take' TO suppose SO, is to suppose the
acquisition and cultivation Of Mississippi,
Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana and
Texas an "evil," that the cotton cultivation,
which at this moment, is not only the basis
vf American power, but the mig lticst lever
of modern civilization, is also an evil, and
finally, that three millions Of productive
instead of three millions Of non producing
negroes, are three millions Of evils
This conclusion is unavoidable, and to
oppose, or to pretend to suppose that
<hngton and Jefferson would or could
'tultify themselves, that in the face of
It's. this condition. these G!tc-c;! CIR
;. they would hold slavery" to
is an alrocious insult to their
heir mental capacities lis we'll
tism.
ese antislavcry Republi-
cry is to them an evil
of power for fifty
wn their National
riffs, their grand
vements, their
for plunlcring
well, indeed,
do not mean
Garrisons and
oswildercd, de-
subject They
ii books and cher
Ind laborcd to trans
beings like themselves,
ID become social monstrosties,
social lepcrs, "white uggers," aud
- Gule is not distant when tic aroused
disgust aud indignation Of the people will
drive them out from them to herd with