Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1856-11-29
Re-oPening the African Slave

law of 1908, in connection with some further
extracts from the southern press thereon
When Daniel Webster, on Plymouth Rock,
in 1920, pronounced his anethenas against
this horrid traffic, which by our national law
is branded as piracy, declaring those who par
ticipated in it AZ in the sight of Heaven offend
ers beyond the ordinary measure of human
guilt" he little thought that i'll little more
than third of century thereafter, the ques-
ton of its re-instation, by the removal of the
prohibition then existing against it, would be
seriously urged in any section of the country
But it seems we have fallen upon strange
{ lines. 1t is an era when, in the name of De-
mocracy, any iniquity, however appalling,
may be committed, by SO warping the Consti-
luton as to make it favor any scheme, how
ever diabolical, which the slavery extension
lists may concoct. Do they wish to extend
slavery into the new territories, heretofore
free, they have only to get it declared, in the
national convention of the Democratic party,
that the Jeffersoniau ordinance of 'S7, which,
under our present Constitution, consecrated
the great Northwest to freedom, is "uncon-
stitutional," if attempted to be applied at the
present time. By this reasoning, the Missouri
prohibition, although 1t had received the Off
cial sanction of a slaveholding President,
slaveholding Cabinet, and the then leading
statesmen of the South, and was voted for in
Congress by the southern members in a body,
and had remained undisturbed through vari-
Gus administrations for third of a century,
was yet, under the influence of the special
light thrown upon the subject by the Dou-
glases and the Atchisons Of 1854, deemed to be
unconstitutional" and repealed according
ly, to suit the desperate necessities of the
lavery propagandists.
So it will. be, we fear, in regard 10 the pro-
hibition, now existing, against the African
slave rafic. What more business has Con.
gress 10 interfere with that than with the
spread of slavery into the territories None
at all. The argument in either case has the
same potency.
As a specimen of the augmentation much
made use of in southern quarters in ad-
vocacy of the re-opening of the foreign slave
traffic, we give the following from the Charles
ton (S. CO Standard. If it is right to traffic
in slaves at home, no argument is possible to
convince our southern friends of its iniquity
abroad -
The domestic coastwise) slave trade exists,
and as long as there is want for slaves in
the South and West, it will continue. At
present they are torn from homes in Mary
land, Virginia, and North and South Caro-.
lima, aud the question is, should they not rath-
er be brought from Africa From thence
they can be brought with less inhumanity
than laboring population can ever be taken
from one country to another, and infinitely
less than characterizes the trade between the
states. They come with the rupture of no
pre- existing ties. They come from the depths
of barbarism to the very brightest light of
civilization-from restitution to abundance
from social morality to usefulness and life,
and they come to the support and advance
ment of our existing institutions.
$50 long, therefore, as slavery is right and
it is right to buy and sell slaves, there is no
wrong in the foreign slave trade, and every
consideration of policy is in favor of it but
if it be wrong-if it have no vitality and no
inheritance, but it is TO be tolerated only until
it can be laid aside-then every act of sale or
purchase is a wrong. 1t may be difficult to
see how even the introduction of slave can
give us the right to hold him, if he be the
member of the race which has a native right
to sell him, much less can the inheritance of
slave by one person confer the right upon
another TO buy and hold him. At last we
have to meet the question face to face, We
must determine that, in the nature of things,
there may be unequal races; that, in the ma.
ture of things, such unequal races may cock
list; that it is right 10 promote as well as per-
petuste such co-existence; and so determining
we must be as ready to take the slave from
Africa es from any other section of our own
country, and be influenced in our choice by
a simple consideration of its policy"
The necessity which exists for a renewal of
the foreign trade, to replenish with slaves from
the coast of Africa those States which may
suffer by the emigration of their human ''chat-
tells" to the new territories, is well portrayed
in the following extract from the same paper,
which is leading journal of the " Democrat
ic . faith, in the Palmetto State, supporting
Mr.. Buchanan with great earnestness:
Equality of States is necessary to equality
Of population is necessary to equality of pow
CT in the House OF Representatives zoe can
not expand our labor into territories aoithoat de-
creGslng 1t IN The States aohat is gained upon
the frontier Is lost at the centres Of the iaSitu
ton pauper white labor will not come in
competition with our slaves, and il it did, it
would not increase the integrity and strength
of slavery, and therefore to the equality OF in.
huence in the federal Legislature, there is the
necessity for the foreign slave trade"
That is, the slavery propagandists, in order
to increase their representation in Congress,
must have nav slave States. created from the
new territories and in order to preserve their
power from diminuton by reason of the emf
grationI from the old slave States to the South
and West, new recruits to the " institution"
must be imported from outside the limits Of
the Union, from Africa. Slavery cannot be
expanded into the territories without dimin-
ishing it in the States" therefore new supplies
must be brought in from foreign sources to
keep Maryland, kentucky, Virginia, &c., from
gradually degenerating into the condition Of
free States, BY reason Of the drain upon their
slaves BY their emigration to the new fields of
labor. A well eontrived plan, truly.
Gov. Adams Of South Carolina, in his late
message to the Legislature Of that State, talks
boldly in recommendation Of this scheme Of
re-opening the foreign slave trade. lie says !.
"lo maintain our present condition, we
must nave Tree labor. This can be sustain