The Yazoo Democrat. [volume] (Yazoo City, Miss.) 1858-18??, 1858-09-11
SLAVES FROM GUINEA AND SLAVES
FROM VIRGINIA.

The civilized world is eAslaved to many
legal fiction and tradtionary fallacy, and it
is only BY slow degrees -except in periods
of great social conyusious-th men begin
to reaza the bondage aud end eavor to shake
it off. In theory and practice, in the abstract
aud concrete, they accept without inquiry
dogmss the most repugnaRt to- experience
and the most pernicious in tendency. 50
errors are not nipped in the bud, but only
after The bitter fruit is tasted and it's poison
absorbed, is the axe laid to The root Of the
baleful tree.
An incident, however, has just occurred at
our very doors that is more than usually cal
culated to cause the public mind to behold
IN its true light one stupendous error whose
life has been the decay of the fairest por-
tons of the American continent--whose
bloom is lightning, and whose ultimate frue1
ti6eation can ouly be fatal to some Of the
very highest interests of humanity and civil
zaton. Tie capture of the American slave
brig. Genera Putnam, by the brig Dolphin
of the U. S. Navy, is the occurrence 10
which we refer. We have published the
details of this, capture, description of the
captured vessel, officers and crew, and of her
slave cargo, their present condition, their
character, disposition, wishes, &c. All the
facts are valuable III suggestiveness, and can
scarcely be considered by the most cursory
observer, without provoking an examination
into the consistency, justice, morality and
expediency Of the Federal statutes pro liibit>
inc the African slave trade and denouncng
it as piracy.
This case again brings up those questions
which the advocates of the anti>slave-trade
laws have never been able to answer, to>wt :
Why prohibit the slave trade from Guinea,
and permit it from Virginia How is it
just, and proper, and wholesome TO bring
negro slaves from a better condition in Vir-
GINA, South Carolina or Kentucky, to be
sold in Louisiara or Texas, but wrong, and
barbarous, and pernicious to bring negro
slaves from Guinea or Dahomey, and i'm
prove their condition hundred field in do
ing so How can this same practice, the
slave trade, be right and wrong simultane-
ously9
These questions, we say, have posed the
opponents of the save trade, in the South
at least, and they now do not even pretend
argue, they melely point to the statutes
book and say theprohibition and the Grim,
inal announcement are irrepealable-as if we
lived under the laws of the Modes and Per-
slams. Bnt the people, once reused to in
quire into the question, cannot be put off IN
that way. They will not admit the mons
strous idea that a great question Of right and
wrong, Of justice and humanity, is to be
determined by latitude and longitude alone
They revolt at the idea that the African
slave trader should be hunted, captured and
gibbeted as pirate, when the chvalry and
flower of Virginia, South Carolina, and 9th
er States, directly or Indirectly, participated
in the same species of commerce, without
forfeltuIe'of honor, jeopardy of life, or nsn-
uation of immortality.
The slaves on board the General PUTNAM
we're subjected to hardships which are at
trbutabe not to the slave trade, but to the
laws for its suppr ession.. The surest mode
therefore, of preventing such suffering would
be to repeal the laws that neeessitaie them
and true philanthrppist, calmly looking a
the facts. could not hesitate to. advise tina
course. We are told, moreover. that ibes,
slaves make the most pathetic appeals no
to be taken back to africa. Why, then, in
hct the cruelty Of seuding them thither, a
we learn that theaG0vernment has ordered
that they be sent The Government is au
thorized to return them to their country, bu
i is not compelled to do so by law and !
is obvious that the provision for their return
) presumes that it is their desire to go back
But in this case they earnestly desire to re
main. They prefer any condition here to
replacement in their former condition in AT
RIGA. But the Government, ii seems, inlpur
suance of the anti save-trade crusade, i
determined to act the part of the slave ira
: der. by taking them back into African sla
very at lis own expense. When will all thi
! pestIent humbuggey end AN 0. Deltc