New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1860-10-20
VALUE OF SLAVES.

Inc charleston mercury tuiuhs ~ hos oAti"'o6ons
estimate that the submission of the South to the
administration of the General Government under
Lincoln and Hamln will reduce the value Of slaves
one hundred dollars each. Has that jour- al ever
calculated how many dollars each the value Of
slaves would be reduced 10 case Of violent at
tempt made by any Southern State or States to
retiit that administration? Let it once come to
be the settled opinion of the country as it evidently
is and indeed long has been the creed and doctrine
of The Mercury that the cOeIisteDce of Slavery
and the Union are incompatible, and We shall then
see which will go by the wall. If the mere appre-
heDsion that the power of the General Government
ia TO be employed in sense unfayOrable to Slavery
is to produce such depreciation in the value OF
slaves, what would be the result of an armed coils
ion? At present. under the Constitution, the North
ern States are cutoff from any authority to Interfere
with Slavery in South Carolina. Ii, as In, Mer-
curu anticipates, the value of slaves shall fall
in consequence of the election of Lincoln and HAM
lin, and the submission of the South to their ad-
ministratiOn, that fall will originate exclusively
with the masters, and not at all with the slaves.
EVEN Inc uGtU uoCs uOb Su6sOss 49, NN~~O
quence of the election of Lincoln and Hamlin, and
the submission of the South to their administra-
ton any less labor will be got out of the slaves or
that the cotton crop of next year VIII be sensoiy
diminished Butwbat would be thecase, suppose the
resistance project should be carried out and that
the cotton States should put themselves in an atl'
tude of hostility to the Union We might then
-.
expect fall in the value Of slaves, and pretty
serious one, too, based not merely upon feeling,
but upon fact We might then expect to see, not
a mere nominal loss, by the diminished market
value of the slaves, owing to gloomy antclpatlons
on the part of buyers and sellers as to the future of
Slavery, but positive and actual loss, growing
out of very serious reduction in the amount OF
labor which, in crisis of political revolution, 1t
would be possible to get out OF the slaves. Does
The Mercury imagine that in the midst of such q
revolution, the industry of the South would go on
without interruption Would the slaves be rem
dered any more manageable by the dissemination
among them of the idea that desperate quarrel
bad sprung up between the North and the South
on the question of their Gberation' Would the
expectation and hope which, under such state
of things, would naturally disseminate themselves
among the negroes, that the Government of the
United States had espoused their cause, and that
an army of Northern Abolitionists was on the
march to set them all free, tend to increase their
market value, or to make them more willing and
productive laborers1
OF all schemes for raising the value and adding
to the security of slave property the secession or
disunion project is certainly the most extraord-
nary The AbolitOnism of the North, freed from
the checks which the limitations of the
Constitution impose npOn it, would not
become any the less formidable, while the
domestic difficulties Of maintaining the inst
tuition would be also greatly increased. Add tbs
revival of the save-trade, which might be expected
as speedy result Of the establishment of South
ern COnfederacy and the price would, in all prob
ability soon come down to the African standard