Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1861-03-14

alleviate the supposed miseries of the slaves,
and even rid the earth of the institution of
slavery. A scheme so unfair, so inefficient,
and so perious, not only sinks with its own
weight, but gives strength and permauency
to, and even proclaims the wisdom and law
fulness of. that slavery which it presumes
to supplant and abolish.
A third plan, devised to remove slavery,
is what may be called the prospective and
gradual emancipation scheme. This con-
templates, and requires, that all slaves shall
be free at specified time in the future, or
with another modification, all slaves born
after certain designated period, or with
still another variation, that all negroes of a
particular age shall be entitled to freedom.
With either of these three notifications
this scheme is projected, and has been ap.
piled to demolish the institution of slavery.
As being adverse to such scheme, We OBJ
serve that all the objections urged against
universal emancipation are applicable to
this. And besides it is Objectionable upon
other accounts Its tendency has been to
change the locality, but not the relation of
slavery. Men holding slaves have antici-
pated the period at which the law went into
operation, and transported and sold them
elsewhere. To such an extent was this car
ried that in some free States in this coun-
try, it is doubtful whether single slave
was emancipated under such law. Says
distinguished writer "When emancipa-
ton laws forbade the prolongation of slave
ry at the North, there are living witnesses,
who saw the crowds of negroes assembled
along the shores of New England and the
Middle States, to be shipped to localities
where their bondage could be perpetuated !;
and their posterity toll to-day in the fields
of the Southern planter" The practical
working, then, of such laws, has been to re-
move slaves from one section and crowd
them to their injury into other communi.
ties.
Again. This system tends to excite d:s-
satisfaction and insubordination among the
slaves. If some are to be free and others
not, or if the period of their enslavemept
is protracted, the slaves will grow impa-
tient and will revolt under the yoke, and
thus are prepared the elements of insurrec-
ton and social anarchy. And still further
1t necessitates the admission of a certain
number of persons to privileges for which
they have no qualification. A freeman
should be competent to exercise the priVi-
leges and rights allowed him. But the ne
gro race is not prepared now, nor would he
be under such law as we are discussing,
to discharge the duties of free Citizen
The law then would but mock him by cal
ling him free and yet exclude him from
acting as freeman. And in addition to
al! this, we boldly assert that this emanci-
patton act inficts more direful curse upon
the Blacks than they ever suffer when in
bondage. 1t leaves an anomalous, repul'
sive, troublesome, decaying and pestiferous
element in society. In view Of these facts,
who can doubt the wisdom and duty of con-
tinuing slavery, rather than resort to an ex-
pedient, so precarious, so threatening and
so pregnant with evil consequences Hence
it is plain that the various methods of ef-
fecting the freedom of the enslaved Afri-
cans have nothing to commend them, but
much to oppose and condemn them.
The same is true in reference to the at.
tempts made to dispose of them after being
released from servitude. The plan recon.
mended, and practiced to a great extent
by some, has been to leave them among the
whites, and let them be treated as free
blacks. Such is impracticable for many
reasons.
1t has been in innumerable cases demon
strated by experience, that the negro and
white man cannot long dwell in the same
community upon any kind of equality
The prejudice of color, the we'll known pro-
clivities and habits of the blacks, are per-
maneDt barriers to their being recognized
and treated as the equal of the whites
The superiority of the one, and the ac-
knowledged imbecility and degradation of
the other, will give the one always an ad-
vantage over the other. And thus the
habits and interests of the two would be
ever conflicting Who does not know the
fact that even small quota of free blacks
are not tolerated in slave community,
without their being undera legal guardian
ship and an actual surveillance Who is
ignorant of the fact, that in many of the
free States, the negro is prescribed, and ex-
cluded from almost every social and civil
nriuilooo and in some his residnnco ia not