The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1858-06-10

Wnere the system 10 SO DeautiIully regulated
that Mr.. Mason is charmed with the delightful
condition of the slaves? Has he not heard OF
me, pertinscious efforts of his friends in the
cotton regions to bring about a reopening OF
the slave trade? They have not labor enough
their plantations are languishing for want of i'll
A few months ago, bill authorizing the i'm.
portation of free emigrants from Africa, to
serve as apprentices, passed the House of Rep.
resentatives of Louisiana, by an overwhelming
majority, and came near receiving the concur
renee of the Senate. Louisiana, with her
wellregulated system of Slavery" is as much
in want of labor as Jamaica and Martinique,
with their systems of Free Labor. Col. F. L..
Claiborne, an influential Democratic member
of that Legislature, and warm supporter of
the Apprentice bill, in letter to his constitu.
ents, printed in the Poiae Coupss Democrat,
says
"The day is near at hand, unless some rem.
edy is speedily devised, when negroes will be
30 valuable that none but the rich can own
them. 1t is all.important to the institution of
Slavery that the number of slaue owners should
be increased instead of diminished, and Iknop
of no plan to effect this object as peI as this
African apprentice system"
By the way, the Colonel does not attempt to
disguise the true nature of this Apprentice
scheme; 1t aims to import slaues under the
name Of apprentices
Mr.. Mason ought to know that the demand
for labor in the West Indies and in the cotton
growing region of this country has always out
run the supply. The Capital has increased faster
than the Labor. Under the system of Slavery
in Cuba, in the production of the great staples,
men, women, and children are employed, and
at certain seasons are worked so necessarily as
to cause great waste of life, and consequently a
constant demand for new supplies. These can
be furnished only by the slave trade. The sys-
tenn of slave-labor in Cuba could not be main
tanned, as now managed, if the supplies were
cut off from Africa. The planters would be
obliged to husband the energies of their present
stock of slaves, and pay great attention to
breeding, or make up their minds to see the
system run out. In the Southern section of
this country, there may not be so great waste
of human life in the cultivation of the great
staples as in Cuba, but there is a vast cotton
and eugar region not yet occupied demanding
labor but supplies of slave labor can be OBJ.
tanned only from the farming slave States. 1t
is this which has given birth to the domestic
slave trade, identical in principle with the AZ
rican trade, differing only in this-that the sub.
jects of the former are to q certain extent civ
ilized But, even these States furnish an mad.
equate supply of slave labor, the surplus,
after their own agricultural wants are provided
for, being comparatively small. Hence the
apprehension of Col. Claiborne that negroes
will at no distant day become so valuable that
none but rich men can own them; hence, too,
the growing sentiment in the cotton region in
favor of restoration of the foreign slave trade.
But, the determined opposition of the free
States and of the farming slave States will for.
ever render that event impossible. The oppo.
sition in the latter may arise to certain ex-
tent from philanthropic considerations, but we
are bound to say that such motives are rarely
avowed. On the contrary, the farming slave
States rest their opposition to the reopening
of the foreign slave trade chiefly on the ground
that it would be disastrous to their vital inter.
est. What they mean by this, we shall see.
The Richmond Va.) Enquirer of May oath,
1853, deeply displeased with the Montgomery
Commercial Convention, for its deliberate at.
tempt to recommend the revival of the African
slave trade, and make that question test of
the Union, says:
"If the cotton States are determined to re-
vive the slave trade, and thus to destroy the
value of Slavery in every non-cottong growing
State, it will demonstrate se6shness of which
we have believed Southern States incapable.
If dissolution of the Union is to be followed
by the revival of the slave trade, Virginia had
better consider whether the south of the North
ern Confederacy would not be far more prefer.
able for her than the north of Southern Con.
federacy. In the Northern Confederacy, Vir-
ginia would derive large amount from the
sale of her slaves to the South, and gain the
increased value of her lands from Northern
emigration; while in the Southern Confede-
rscy, with the African slave trade revived, che
would lose two-thirds of the value of her slave
property, and derive no additional increase to
the value of her lands"
What does this mean3 Plainly, that slaves in
Virginia are valuable chiefly as merchandise
articles of expectation to the South. She and
her sister farming slave States have monopoly
of the home market for slaves in the cotton-gro
ing States. Destroy this monopoly
the foreign slave trade-and Slavery ceases to
be valuable to us-we lose at once two thirds
of our slave property ..
Again, replying to remark of the Rich.
mond Va.) Examiner that it hoped the En-.
quirer did not mean to say, that upon any cal
culation of dollars and cents, or under any con.
ceivable circumstances whatever, Virginia ought
to abandon her Southern sisters, and attach
herselfto Northern Confederacy, the Enquirer
says:
That if we believed, that after dissolution
of the Union, the Southern Confederacy would
reopen the slaUe trade then, and in that
case, we would urge upon Virginia to seek nc
connection with that Confederacy uAtil guar.
antee was given that her interest in Slavery
would be protected by her sisters of the
Southern Confederacy. Shall Virginia dissolve
this Union for the avowed reason that the in
stitution of Slavery was not sufficiently pro
tected, and then connect herself with the South
ern Confederacy, which, by opening the slave
trade, would destroy twothirds of the value oil
the institution in the State? In the Federal
Union we are induced to believe that Slavery
is threatened with destruction by our Northern
enemies while in the Southern Confedevaoy
if the councils of the madcaps of the Mont
gomery Convention are to be potential, Slavery
in Virginia would be certainly destroyed. This
then, is what we would have our neigbbor un
derstand by our Mondays article, which has
attracted 60 much attention that if our sis
tiers of the South entirely disregard the value
of the greatest interest in Virginia, and for the