Richmond enquirer. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1815-1867, 1858-12-14
Iv the road side there sat an aged man,
Who all day long. from dawn into the night,
Counted. with weary fingers. heaps Of stones
m, f.oJ,ya,, If,I,..

\ decent respect for the opinions OF the
world. and prudent regard for its own rcpu-
tation. would induce the Edinburgh Review,
(Which, like the witches of Macbeth, is "On
the earth. and yet not Of it, y to cease publica-
ton, and give place to younger men, who be-
long TO our times, and who understand them.
But old age is sometimes as conccited as it is
blind and garruous-and such is the old age Of
this Review 1t will chatter on to the last, as
retailer of dcflnct theories, and "landator tenn
park actj scl'nlcro."
The writer to whose essay we shall attempt
10 reply. traces all American shortcomings
mStcedS. ignorance, vulcarity and fillibuster-
ing to her active participation in the slave
| trade This, in his view. is 1.-The height and
front of our offending, and pregnant source of
the multitudinous evils, with which, nc says,
we are afflicted We shall first notice this
charge, because if we succeed in refuting and
fasitvng it, we shall have disposed Of all his
other charges, which are mere corollarcs that
he deduces, from our great offence OF keeping
up the slave trade, whilst Ill other nations, cX-
ccpt Spain, have abandoned it. The Reviewer
charges us as follows, page 219 There has
been, hitherto no opportunity of understand
| ing and presenting the evidence appropriate to
| the present time; tina. of the operation Of
| slavery and the slave trade on the countries
and pcoplcs where it has existed after being
| got rid of by the rest of the civilized world.
! The United States stand first in all eyes,
among the very few countries which still come
under this description Brazil having actually
retired from the slave trade, the United States
and Cuba are generally regarded as the two
countries which sustain the traffic The
reader will remark he is speaking Of the Afri-
can slave trade.
Again. page a95, he says: "What does the
| American slave trade on behalf of Cuba
amount TO: When other nations have with
drawn from the traffic leaving it almost en-
cl,,Svcly to the United States and Spain, and
when we know how many negroes are i'm
ported into Cuba, we have only to divide the
amount between the United States and Spain.
We will now quote 4 passage in the essay i'll
which our Reviewer takes the other side, and
says, America will have nothing to do with the
slave trade in any form or under any disguise
of mere names See pages 29l, 292: "Fa-
rious Legislatures have discussed schemes for
enabling free negroes to sell themselves into
slavery for terms of years. or for life; or for
prohibiting emancipation by will or otherwise;
or for permitting the immigration of IN inae".
tnred negroes, or Coolies from Indta or GANG ,
or for openly reviving the old slave trade.
Every Annual Convention debates the subject
That at Knoxville, last year, assigned to com
mittee the work of preparing report which
elected the rcmonstranccs Of Virginia; and that
report, presented on the 10th of last May, is
one of the strongest productions of our century.
No ingenuity and no cloqucnce avail, however,
to obtain acceptance for any Of these schemes.
All have been put down at once which bear
any resemblance to slave trade"
1t would be impossible in any other language
to give more full, flat and comprehensive de-
NAL, and refutation of the authors charges,
than that with which he here furnishes us.
lie fully understands that he utters foul
and false SANDER where he charges the United
States with being engaged in the slave trade
because one in hundred thousand Of her poo
ple. in defiance of her laws, may be engaged in
that trade as between Cuba and Africa for ne