The western Democrat. [volume] (Charlotte, N.C.) 1852-1870, 1857-01-27
SLAVE ExEMPTToN-ANE NEW CUES.

exchanges are beginning TO agitate the queS-
tion of exempting family servants from le-
gal seizure and execution. This policy is
urged upon the two fold ground that it
would have the tendency to diffuse the in
stitution of slavery among the present NM
shareholders of the South. thereby avoiding
the inroads which aholitionism is seeking
to make upon that class, and at the same
time to lesson the force of one of their most
effective appeals to the passions about the
cruelty of forced separations of families
What merit there is in such proposition
we are not yet prepared to say. The
subject is worthy of consideration, and as
such we submit it to our readers. The
Memphis Eagle and Enquirer, treating this
subject, among other things says:
''Our reading of Northern sentiment, as
developed during the agitations of the past
summer. enlightened US t" the intentions
of the North. That intention broke out
and shone through the Republican papers,
and while it looked to no violence, it advis-
ed US of an under current forced to baat
at our feet with the hope that, in COED time
we should find our foundations undermin-
ed, and the South as it is, destroyed.
Northern policy goes upon the aSsump-
ton that the non shareholders of the South,
from interest. are hostile TO slavery.
THE question for US to determine is, how
can the interests Of the stakeholder and the
STAKEHOLDER be so consolidated as to
destroy this assumption, and produce, south
of Mason and Dixnn's line, a unit.
Southern legislation must be so shaped
that, in the course of a few years, the whole
people of the South can be relied upon to
protect its institutions or honor in any emer-
gency.
How is it to he done! The remedy is
easy-the plan simple. The laws of the
South must encourage every citizen to not
only become, but remain. n slaveholder.-
If he become STAKEHOLDER from choice, he
must choose between remaining SO and di-
vesting himself voluntarily of the value of
such slave property as he may possess
In short, law, exempting certain num-
DcT, OF IL CtGlull uutbuIlb III NuIuSS VI EluNcS
from execution or sale for debt, must be en-
acted. The commerce and business of the
country would soon accommodate itself to
the change, whilst the South would be
brought together, both in interest and in
the social relation. The chances Of South
ern occupation as the common territories
of the Union would be thus nineteen times
increased, for it is correctly estimated that
nineteen Southern men out of every twenty,
are non Shareholders. 1t is easy to see that
if these nineteen owned slaves, be they
many or few, wherever they might go, their
slaves would 60 with them /; and it is also
very apparent that. in contest between
the North and the South in the settlement
of territory and the formation of its insti-
tutions, there is only one Southern man to
oppose to twenty Northern men,"
The Richmond (Virginia) Whig. treat
ing of the same subject, says:
The adoption of the policy indicated
would result, it is perceived, in tho univer-
sal diffusion of the slavery among the South
ern people, and would. besides, deprive
our enemies at the North of an argument
constantly employed by them against us,
and not without decided effect. That is,
ii would take from them the fact upon which
they dccluim so vehemently, of there being
in the South only three hundred and odd
actual shareholders, whom, for
their factious and trai,orous purposes, they
are pleased to denominate and denounce as
the Slave Oligarchy. Establish by law an
exemption of family servants from execu-
ton, and instead of only three hundred
actual Shareholders, we shall soon
have as STAKEHOLDER every head of fami-
ly in the Southern States and who would
:hus be pecunia lily interested in defending
and uph"lding an institution so warmly
cherished by ourselves, and so bitterly and
assailed from without
Nashville Union.