Cleveland morning leader. [volume] (Cleveland [Ohio]) 1854-1865, 1859-02-12
MORNING LEADER.
The Destiny OF the Races.
BY HON. ?. P. BLAIR, JR.



inherent In their old forms, and possibly the
inyeterate habits of that people, will not permit
them to settle, and the machinery to move easily
and in order. A dependency of our Govrnment
composed of a people addicted to respect it and
accustomed to its forms, aided by a multitude Of
our own race, whose enterprise and interest
would induce them to embark their capital and
skill in building up new power to appropriate
the riches Of the tropics, would form republic
to give law to all Of their caste within the reach
of its influence. have no doubt that all the
nations and islands of the Gulf would fall under
the influence and make league with such
dependency of the United States as l have con
templated, and that the whole would necessarily
look to our Union for protection. The eonti-
guilty of the Uuited States and the relations
which its commerce and Overshadowing power
would create, and the very posture of the eoun-
try, enyeloped In the waters poured out from
our land and the Gulf Stream that washes our
shores, must make the people who inhabit it
with us, though not of US. 1t would, in fact,
become our India, but under happier auspices,
for, instead of being governed by great COM
pany to drive the people to despair and insur-
rection by its exactions, it would have its own
Government, which would owe fesIty to ours,
as Canada does to England, which is governed
by its own representative Assemblies and by
Governor and Cabinet, which, however appoin-
ted, recongaize conformity to public opinion
declared by the representative body to be aduty.
The crown is but q symbol of authority Its
power and that of the British Parliament is felt
only In aiding theSimprovement of the country
and protecting it. The tie between them is a
tride cord of increased power, happiness and
glory, the growth Of their union, And believe
such will be the bond to bind to the car of our
Union as dependencies the free republics of
African Americans now in embryo in our tro-
pies, and the Indian republics of Mexico, in
which the red race now constitutes seven
eighths of the population. 1t is the true mis-
sion of superior and enlightened race to pro-
tect and establish with well founded institutions
the feebler races within the reach of its infu-
ence. The general welfare requires this, and
renders it the exalted duty of powerful nations
England, France and Russia, though subject to
selfish monarchies, yet feel the impulse of this
enlightened age; and we see the Gar giving
freedom and personal rigf IS to the sixty mil
lions of serfs, and spreading civilization over
all the north of Europe and Asia. England and
France hold up besotted Turkey and endeavor
instil life again by imparting freedom and tole-
ration to the masses. England extends her
principles ofrepresentative government, in grea-
ter or less degree, to her dependencies; and
France, propagating her power In Africa and
Asia, carries with it the refinement, intelligence
and skill, which may at some time elevate the
people she eivilizes in the scale of nations
Shall the mighty state Of this hemisphere-the
pioneer of the liberal principle Of the greatest
good to the greatest number-be known to the
red and black races struggling into existence,
under liberal forms of government, in neighbor
ing climes suited to their caste, only as de-
predator and enslaverl They seem to have
been committed to our guardianship b. the gTa-
cious Providence that conferred so many bles-
sings upon US in the achievement of our own
liberties. Shall we abuse the power thus con-
ferred by establishing bondage as the law for all
whom we can master!
1 dare not speak for all the States, but for that
in which live can assert that there is strong
feeling among the masses to absolve Missouri
from the shame of ofcountenancing the slave trade,
foreign or domestic, or of increasing the burden
upon the Union by employing the Treasury or
creating anational debt to buy islands of slaves,
en- nasse, for others uses, or even of continuing
the abuse within its own limits, to foster the
pride of few at the expense of the interests of
the many. But there are difficulties IN accom-
pIishing this last point that the people Of the
Free States do not seem to estimate; and yet,
when nearly one half of these States have laws
on their statute books prohibiting the immigra-
| tion of free negroes into them, they should un-
derstand why It is that almost every man repels
any scheme of emancipation which would let
loose hundred thousand negroes in Missouri,
either to prey upon the community as paupeTs OF
to become competitors with the free white la
| borer for wages. The removal of the manumlt-
ted slave is sine qua non in every State that
looks to deliverance from Slavery.
The alternatives through which this inexora-
BILE condition is to be reached, ought to be well
considered by every friend of emancipation
/ Missouri may be delivered by selling the slaves
in Southern market, or by sending them, as
the Indians were sent, to freeholds abroad, at
the expense of the General Government. The
riddance to be obtained by selling the slaves oi
Missouri, their owners would recol from with
| commendable repugnance- 1t is great error to
impute to slave owners generally, butespeeially
to those of the farming States, a want of feel
ing for their slaves The hearts Of Southern
men, though shareholders, are alive to as gene
rous and tender emotions as any on earth, and
they feel family ties bind them to the slaves who
have been associated in its cares and labors, al
most as strongly as the ties of consanguinity.-
/ 1t is the reluctance to subject them to more Ia
Dor under overseers without the family sympa-
| thies to make them lenient that forms an OBJ.
struction to Missouri's becoming Free State by
| the sale of that class Of her people. AS freed.
men, neither the North nor the South will re.
ceive them, and unless better home is made for
them abroad, the process now going forward in
Missouri to emancipate the State must eonsign
them to the cotton region The immense ae-
cession to her white population from the East
during the last year and this, has put in mo-
ton mass of another hue towards the
4 1e,-bk J---l
retreatinp body, as il follows the shadow of a
cloud passing from our fields The temptation
held out by MissOuri-the middle pathway OF
nations-inviting emigration from all the world
is now too great to be resisted by its compare
lively small body of slaves Here the emf.
grant from every State in the Union and Of
Europe may find kinsman, and men from al
the world will find themselves in the midst Of
i its staples. Here ara mountains of iron and
wildernesses Of timber, and the earth teemina
with coal and lead and other minerals Mate
rials to i'll the hand Of man with machinery,
and % furnish that fPromethesn heat with
which he gives life and activity to the world
i of bis creation. Missouri--seated at the con-
| Auence Of her mighty floods, that bring with
them all the tribute of the farthest North and
West, and make return with the luxuries Of the
richest tropics Of the esrth--with one hand ex-
tended, she now reaches the seaPorts of the At
Iantie; she is stretching the other to the Pa.
ciic for its golden treasures and the wealth Of
the Indies. It is madness to suppose that she
will long endure the decrepitude Of Slavery =
And xhils her slaves aud those Of the South
em States within the temperate zone are an in
eumbrance to them, if set free and seated with.
in the tropics, they would be worth much to
the nation and to the world. The value of q
dependency theres made up of our emancipated
blacks may be estimated by the readiness OF