The Abbeville banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1847-1869, 1857-06-25
from the Nc'o ORLEANS Delta.
THE SLAvEHOLDING INTEREST.

ana h'ty thousand actual and legal slave
holders III the South, and, counting mem
bers Of families and others who arc virtual
Shareholders, the number directly identified
with The slaveholding. interest is not less
than two millions,
The number of slaves in the South is
over three and half millions, their aggre-
gate value, atpresent prices, is fully sixteen
hundred millions of dollars.
The cotton plantations in the South are
about eighty thousand, and the aggregate
value OF their annual products, at the pres
ent prices of cotton, is fully one hundred
and twenty millions of dollars. There are
over fifteen thousand tobacco plantations,
and their annual products may be valued
at about fourteen millions of dollars. There
are two thousand six hundred sugar planta-
tIons, the products of which average annu.
ally more than twenty millions Of dollars.
There are five hundred aud ffty-one rice
plantations which yield n annual revenue
of four millions of dollars.
Many other products of Sauthern asri-
culture might he added to this list, but we
enumerate the above articles because they
may be regarded as exclusively the p,oduc-
tions Of slave labor.
Here, then, we have capital of sixteen
hundred millions, producing annually a
cash value Of one hundred and fifty mil
lions, owned and employed in the South,
and identified with the institution ofSlavery.
No community Of capitalists Of the same
number, unless it be the British East India
Company in its palmiest days ever welded
a capital of such magnitude or possessed
more elements Of power, commercial, politi-
cal and moral. Yet the vast capital of this
body Of men is not based upon monop-
oily; is protected by no fostering laws has
had the perpetual frown rather than the
smile of the government under which it
was held; and would have long since per-
ished under the restrictions of unfriendly
legislation, but for the inherent Justice,
wholesomsness, and utility of the industrial
system on which is rested.
How much longer this capital will be
able to stand before the hostile influences
arraycd against it, may be question of
very few years, or question running
through future of indefinite duration ac-
cording to the sagacity or the stoldity, the
energy or the apathy, the courage or the
timidity, the spirit of independence or the
spirit of submission, which may be dis
played by the slaveholding interest of the
South. Certain it is, that this capital is
now i'll great danger, and the danger in
creases daily. The "moral sentiment of
the civilized world is at war with this capi-
tai; the literature Of the civilized world is
acting like a slow poison to destroy .his
capital; the newspaper press in Europe
and, with few exceptions in the United
States, is either hostile to this capital or
unsympathizing with it.; while the politics
of the only existing national party offer no
protection to this capital beyond the abstrac-
ton of non.interference'- means
the preservation Of a status quo, the inevita-
BILE result of which must be the gradual
destruction of this capital.
This capital is not only insecure, its con-
dition is abnormal. 1t not only needs 10
he a~r-..leu politically and vindicated NOR
ally, material guarantees are also wanted.
Its basis requires to be enlarged territorialy,
diffused numerically, and stabiitated So
cially. National politics, as at present Or
ganized, if confded in for security will be-
tray this great interest; political non-inter-
ference from without will delude with the
show Of protection, while passivity within
is inviting the spirit Of destruction that
never rests and never sleeps.
We are told that the public opinion OF
the world must be changed before Slavery
is entirely secure; but there is another
change more essential, and that is the
change of public opinion at the South
The thorough conviction Of right, first, the
strenuous and unfinching assertion Of
might afterwards, are the indispensable con-
ditions of Southern safety. For right is
nothing without the power to defend it;
and the public opinion Of the world has al.
ways been disposed to construe might into
the prima facie evidence, at last, Of right
Power, in whatever form, is always respec-
table, and the public opinion Of the world
holds it in due reverence.
The Slave interest, then, has only to
show that it is in earnest, to show that it il
strong, and show that is ready to exert its
strength defantly and triumphantly, in the
Union or out of the Union-aye, and use
its strength, if necessary, in argument ol
naked steel and logic Of shotted gun, te
guarantee its existence against moral, politi
cal, or any other power