New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1857-07-28

Give US the Public Lands, and we will abolish
" Slavery" or, Give us Twenty Millions per
annnm for FIFTY years from the Federal Treasury,
"aDd We will abolish Slavery 'o-morrow," we
should be inclined to answer, "Tske the Lands,
cor take the money, and let our country be Re-
"public Id deed as well as in name;" but, in the
absence of any such prefer, we demur to the Wis
dom and policy of an offer from our side, as we do
to the justice Of the proposed compensatiDg system,
for the following rea,ons:
!. 1t seems to ignore the essential error and
wrong, the injustice and mischief, Of slavehoding
II tends to confirm the Shareholders in the error
sedulOusy inculcated by the PrO.Slavery journals,
that Slavery, whatever moral objections may be
urged to it, secures great Industrial pecuniary and
social advantages to the slsvehoding class, IS ind'
viduals and generally. These are the elemental
fallacies whereby Slavery is this day upheld and
we fear and dread TO strengthen them. Overwhelm
Pro-Slavery man with facts and arguments show
inc the necessary injustice and immortality of the
,laveholdinp system and he turns upon you with
the question, "without Slavery, how shall the
"worJd be supplied with Cotton, Sugar, Coffee
I" and Tobacco2" Now we meet this question d.
rectly by showing that Slavery cripples and blghts
the productive capacity Of any region it rules, as is
clearly evinced by the sparse population and low
price of LANDS in Slave a. compared with Free
States We do not of course, maintain that the
Identical individuals now growing Sugar and Cot
ton would produce more Of those staples in Free.
dom than they do in Slavery, any more than the
copvicts in our State Prisons would make more
boots, shoes, files &C., at liberty than they are
making at present; but it is Overwhelmingly de-
mODstrable that a free-labor community, other
things being equal, produces more, improves more,
enjoys more, tbsn one whose labor is mainly ex.
torted from slaves. We can prove beyond question
that Virginia, or any other Slave State, would be
richer, stronger, more pOpulOus, more progressive,
ten years hence, or fifty years, if she were to abo-
ish Slavery Tomorrow than if she should retain it;
but if New. York were to offer Virginia Fifty Mil
lions Of Dollars to induce her to give up Slavery,
bow naturally and plausiby the Slave Press would
say, "They would not seek to bride us to give up
"0ur slaves unless they felt that Slavery gave US
San advantage over Them" We know this would
be fallacious but it would be very plausible fa-
IhCy, anu Wuuu uIu ~ CAooC tuo CyCe ouu HSiuCH
the hearts Of the shareholders.
III. In all discussions Of grave character and mo-
nent, it is we'll to keep the moral element in the
foreground If Slavery be essentially right, tsbOud
be left undisurhed; if wrong, those who have
power to abolish it cannot do so moment too soon.
"Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteous
"Less, and all these things shall be added unto you,
is the Divine rule for all cases involving considera-
tions of right and wrong. If Jonah, in preaching
the destruction Of Nineveh for her Astounding
wickedress, had added, "And am authorized to
"offer ten dollars per head to every one of you
"whO repents forthwith" we don't believe he
would have preached to such purpose as he did.
A good many sinners would have stopped to higgle
for fifteen dcllars-cr even twenty, perhaps-t the
season for repentance had passed.
Ill. The compensatiDg plan ignores the fact that
Slavery bas always taxed the Free States, aud is
taxing them to-day. In Postage, in Public Defense,
n the subordiDatiOn of our industriO commercial
policy to the presumed interests Of cotton growing,
~ false and degrading notions of the worth and dig
uity of Labor heading or youth to seek By any and
every means to avoid life of productive industry,
we Of the Free States are and long have been bur-
deped and damaged By the Slave system. And, if
Slavery were abolished to morrow, the work of
National deverance from the evils it has wrought
would be barely begun. The false notions OF Labor
it has generated and burnt into our National genius
would require ages for their complete eradication.
Then, the negroes, 30 long debased and brutalized
by the lash Of the Overseer, reared in dense igno.
rance, general unchasty and the notion that Labor
is badge of degradation and an unmitigated curse,
would be, for generations, heavy trial to us all.
Az We write, our eye rests On this passage ffem
recent letter of Col j. Prince, member of the
Canadian Parliament who, in reply to the resolves
of a meeting Of the Blacks of Toronto, in which he
was accused of having unjusty denounced their
people, says:
at har been my misfortune and the misfortune OF
my family To live among those Blacks land they have
lived upon us) for twenty four years. have EN-.
ploy cd buLdreds Of them and with the exception OF
one, named Richard Hunter, not one has done Tor US
q week g honest labor. / have taken them into my
service have fed and clothed them year after year on
their arrived from the States; and in return have
generally found them rogues and thieve', and a
grsceess worthless thriftless lying set Of vagsbonds
ibis is my very plain aud very simple description OF
the dsrkes as body, and It would be ndorsed by all
the Western white men, with very few exceptions
Of courre, this is strongly put-we think more
strongly than the facts will warrant-and it will
not apply to those who seek to live by agriculture
80 fully as it will to those who crowd into
cities like Toronto-but its basis of truth
must be recognized by the candid We know
honest, worthy, industrious negroes but
The negroes of New.York have many points of
yeseublance n Gal prince's deacrintion of their