The Washington union. [volume] (City of Washington [D.C.]) 1857-1859, 1859-01-01
THE SOUTH AND THE SLAVE TRADE.

southern States are as thoroughly opposed TO the
project of importing savage Africans from their
native tropics into the bosom Of southern society,
they could be to any revolutionary proposition, and
they have been TO any obnoxious measure
Gu every occasion, and in every State in which the
measure has been formally brought forward, of late
at the South, it has been promptly and oyerwhelm
ingly voted down by authoritative organs of south
sentiment. Were it real question: whether
captive natives from the coast of Africa naked, ig-
norant black beasty virtually dumb and altogether
unused to labor, should be brought by ship-loads
to our shores, and incorporated by hundreds of
thousands into the social system Of the South we
have doubt that the southern people would protest
with all the energy, vehemence, horror, and disgust
against the measure, with which their fathers pro-
tested, and continued to protest, for many years
against the original prosecution of it by the British
government and the northern colonies, from the
time of the first anchorage of Dutch SLAYER in
Hampton Roads down to the close of the last CEN
fury
The landing by stealth of single vessel the
coast of Georgia. laden with few scores of these
miserable wretches has little other practical effect
than to test the vitality of the laws which prohibit
the traffic. The blacks may be spirited away into
the interior and southern citizens may borrow from
northern abolitonists, in underground railroad"
convenient expedent for hiding their transaction
from tho honest gaze of upright and law
abiding community but the number of blacks thus
scattered futvely through the land is too small TO
make any impression upon the face of southern So
ciety and upon the current Of southern industry flow
ing smoothly in it's accustomed channels The isola-
ted occurrence of such event can serve only to
induce an abstract discussion of the policy of re-
opening this traffic. and what is important, test
The fidelity Of The southern people TO The constitution and
lars chich they haze nvoked tci much eoquenee and
pertineney against the fanatics Of The North, who have
enacted local laws, and set up Higher Law" in
justification Of their own nhdety to them
If, instead of few scores of these creatures,
there had been several hundred thousands of them
landed upon the coast of Georgia then indeed would
southern sentiment have been reused to speak out
trumpet tongued against measure, which, in its
industrial and social effects upon southern society
and institutions, would have been, in all proba-
bility most radical and revolutionary. If tho steps
taken to naugurate this policy had been of this
decisive character, and the southern people had
been called suddenly to face, seriously, in this
imposing form, measure which threatened
pletely to remodel the wages of labor, the cost of
production, the prices of commodities throughout
their limits to revolutionze their industrial system in
all It's relations and to introduce savage and bar
b arous element in their social system, the
quences, immediate remote, Of which, none could
tell but all would regard with intense apprehension;
we should have heard a voice of anathema, mara
natha at the South against the traffic such as no peo-
pie ever uttered before against great act of public
iniquity.
Those portions of the South in which the major
ty of the white population is found are grain and
tobacco growing regions; and their people could
never be induced to incorporate new swarms of AT
ricans into their communities Not only would thew
resist their importation for such purpose but they
would regard any countenancc given to the measure
by the cottonand sugar growing States, breach of
faith towards themselves part of great sec
ton Of the Union having with them common interest
suffering common wrongs and indignities from tho
outside world, and bound by common des-
tiny in regard to their common domestic institution
The theory of this portion of the slavehoding sec
ton of the Union is chat it is the owner of the slave
who is the real servant, and not the bondsnan him
self They believe that the institution of slavery SO
fur as they concerned, is not profitable in an in
dusria point of view. They believe that owing to
the original importation into their community by
the North and Great Britain of Africans in numbers
vastly disproportioncd to the necessities of their
country for labor, and in opposition to their con-
slant and earnest protest against it, much larger
slave population exists among them than they
could safely liberate, if the highest precepts
of christianity and philanthropy did not impera-
lively forbid such step, and also that much larger
number Of slaves has resulted than they can en-
poy in their local industry. They believe that
but for the yearly emigration of large per centage
of this population from their borders, southwark
into new cotton and sugar-growing regions that
are opening up the accumulation of the negro popu-
iation among them would most inlpriously affect
their interests, and if this emgroN on were pre-
vented by the introduction of native Africans in
the cotton regions, in the stead of emigrant me-
groes from the higher lattudes OF tho South most
disastrous consequences would ultimately result not
only to the localities Immediately effected by the
stoppage Of this emigration, but to the whole
saveholdng section of the Undertaking no ac-
count of the great revolution in the prices of
slaves and Of all comm, dities affected by their