The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1856-10-02

lation to straits that make it an ecH Of great
magnitude" only to be cured by ga change OF
public sentiment" Now, / turn to that change
of public sentiment" as exhibited in the leading
organs of the South-the Richmond Enquirer
aud Richmond Era1ainer-to show what RENE
dy they propose for the oppression which weighs
down the white laborer, who, without land OF
his own, is obliged to enter into competition with
slave labor, directed by an educated master with
slaves, and capital and unlimited powerto COM
mand. The following passages are from late
editorials in the presses which speak for the null
lifers of Virginia. They appeared during the
late session of Congress, to instruct it in the
new theory. This is from the Richmond En-
quirer:
"Until recently, the defence of Slavery has
labored under great difficulties, because its spol-
ogists, for they were merely apologists, took
halfway ground. They confined the defence
of Slavery to mere negro Slavery, thereby CIV
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. Human
experience, showing the universal success of
slave society, and the universal failure of free
society, was unavsiling 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 South
ern States justified the holding white mon in
Slavery, provided that through the mother they
were descended, however remotely, from negro
slave. The bright mulattoes, according to their
theory, were wroDgfully 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 iustifes it. The South further charges,
that the little experiment of free society in West
ern Europe has been, from the beginning, q
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 direct-yet the
principle of Slavery is in itself right, and does
not depend on difference of complexion. DIFF
ference of race of lineage, of language, of hab.
its, and customs, all tend to render the institu-
ton more natural and durable and although
slaves have been generally white, still the mas
tiers and slaves have generally been of different
national descent. Moses and Aristotle, the ear
lest historians, are both authorities in favor of
the difference in race, but not of color"
A book has been published, entitled " Free
Society Failure" written by George Fitzhugh,
which the Enquirer and Examiner commend
as supporting "the change of sentiment" which
they urge on in Virginia. This book gives
emphasis to the new doctrines in these senten-
ces:
snake 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 practice ~
=" Slavery has been too universal not to be ne
cessary to nature, and man struggles in vain
against uature.n "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 govern
ed. Our negroes are not only better off as to
physical comfort than free laborers, but their
moral condition is better"
ave do not adopt the theory that Ham was
the ancestor of the negro race. The Jewish
slaves were not negroes; and to confne the jus.
LITIGATION 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 neces.
,ary."
mature has made the weak, in mind or body,
slaves" 4 "The wise and virtuous,
he broro IL -, ~ LoJx
born to command"
4" 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 Declaration of indie
pendence is exuberantly false, and aborescently
fallacious."
The Richmond Examiner supports the same
views In this paragraph:
AT first view, it seems strange that abolition
never arose till after the institution of negro sa
very. Protection to the weak, and subsistence
for the Ignorant, improvident, and vicious, are
the two great and most obvious considerations
that render domestic slavery necessary. Neither
private nor public charity is always at hand to
relieve the wants, the sufferings, the sickness,
and the many other misfortunes to which large
masses OF mankind, without property or prop
Unfolding connections, are subject.
Our object in these preliminary remarks is
to show how unwise it is for the South to at
tempt to justify negro slavery as an exceptional
institution. 1t is the only form of slavery which
has excited the preudices of mankind, and
given rise to abolition; the only kind of slavery
which has not been until recently universal.
The q " M tba al -oc
mankind amply vindicate Slaveryin the abstract,
as natural, universal, and conservative insti.
tuition. In justifying Slavery in the general or
abstract, we have to contend with the preu-
dices growing out of the African slave trade,
out OF the cruel treatment of slaves wher.
ever that trade exists and the still greater pre-
JUDGES of race and color. Still, it is shown by
history, both sacred and profane, that domestic
slavery is natural, normal and, till lately, uni
versal institution. A comparison Of the evils of
Tree and slave society, from the censuses of diff
terent countries, from the history of the English
Poor Laws, from the famines revolutions, inf
delities, superstitions, agrariansms, and anar.
chies, that have of late years afflicted Western
Europe, and from the communistic and social.
lstic movements of the day, proves those socie-
ties only to be permanent and enduring, which
have rested upon the patriarchal institution of
domestic slavery as a basis. When it is thus
shown that some kind of slavery is necessary,
all must be willing to admit that, as slaves there
must be, negroes are best fitted for that cond-
ton"
In these principal journals of the Old Domin-
ION and of South Carolina, we have the solution
OF the difficulty growing out of the monopoly of
the soil by slave labor, and the sovereignty over
the State Governments, which, as an incident,
1t conferred on the masters. The utter destitu.
ton and entire dependence of the white work
ing classes on the slaveholding class, and the
absolute independence of the latter on the for.
mer, produces a state of superiority on one side,