Indiana State sentinel. (Indianapolis, Ind.) 1861-1865, 1862-06-02
The End OF slavery.

The End OF Slavery.
1t is a very common remark in these times
that, whether emancipation be adopted as the
policy of the war or not, slavery has received its
death blow" by the war. We have grave doubts
of the truth of the prophecy. 1t is impossible to
foresee what is in the future of our nation. but
nothing in the present ustifes the belief that the
war will give slavery any such blow, or produce
any immediate effect on the institution where it
now exists. 1.-THE policy of declaring emancipa-
ton by general order, or proclaiming it from the
Presidential chair, had been adopted, if it
should hereafter be adopted by the dominant par
ty at Washington and forced on the nation, We
are inclined to believe that it would result in
rivetting the chains of the slave for thousand
years, and rendering the introduction of free la
Dor into the Southern States a total imposSlbltv.
1t is easy to imagine proclamation of freedom
aud an advancing army compelling its adoption.
But those who see this grand triumph of their
anxious hopes in the future should look little
farther and study the probable fate of the freed
slave, the conquered white and the conquering ar
my. No political future can be devised, after
such result, except despotism a strict ad-
ministration of law which would be equiva-
lent to it. The millions of blacks would as
certainly be re-enslaved by the whites, wheth.
er Northern coDquerOrs or Southern con-
quered men, as society resumed its laws,
and the necessities of life and labor and the
relations of the dependent and supporter, the
serving and the served, became necessary for the
renovated social system. Even in this extreme
case, We have no idea that vast and extended
system of slavery can be permanently removed
from a nation by conquest and military occu-
patton without destroying the nation. Armies
are not apostles of liberty. and the result of
forced disruption of the bond between Southern
slaves and their masters would be to prove the
necessity of restoring the relation for the protec-
ton of both well as for the best good of the
conquerors.
That is very easy philanthropy to practice
which looks on men afar off and deals with rela-
tons between classes in distant countries. But
if the millions of Southern blacks were thrown
on our nation as paupers to be fed, clothed, and
protected or furnished with means of providing
for themselves, it is not improbable that nine
tenths of the advocates of emancipation would
be at once devising systems of exclusion, or of
compulsory labor, or other forms of slavery.
In whatever aspect the future is viewed, this
black race is the subject of profound solcitude,
and political economists and wise statesmen re-
gard their sudden, or their gradual freedom, if
they remain among US, as the worst possible flu
ture both for them and for the country. Within
quarter of century after freeing them, the
mere necessity of the case would have reduced
them to slavery, for though we might call our
new labor system by some other name it would
be that and nothing else.
But has the war given a deathblow to slavery
in any other way? There is to-day in the North
ern mind a general desire that some plan of
emancipation may be devised which will be agree
able to the South and result in the final extnc
ton of slavery. There is undoubtedly in the
minds of wise Southern men sincere wish that
some system could be devised as a substitute for
this. But the moral effect of the war has been
to increase the Southern attachment to the insti-
tuition, and it is very mnch to be doubted whether
it has not increased in Northern States dislike
to the race of blacks. The question recurring
on the admission of the colored race to equal
position with the whites. or even on their being
allowed to enter the free States and settle there,
a strong disposition to exclude them is every
where manifested. 1t is plain that if to day the
people of the United States could give freedom
to the entire negro race, with the condition an
nexed that they should be free to overrun the
country. ne-tenths of the people, ninety and
nine hundredths of them would refuse the word
OF freedom. This disposition only shows what
the inevitable future would be if the race were
freed and left among malgamation will
never be permitted, and the coexistence of two
races in the same country, without amalgama
ton, is political status the result of which his
tory points out.
III cOnSlueflng JDe present Slale Ol the Inlnus
of anti-slavery men, it is important to draw
distinction between two feelings, hatred to slave
~. and hatred to the STAKEHOLDER. If the present
sentiment of the North were a sincere indigna-
ton against slavery, then we might argue from
it that some system would be devised for getting
rid of the institution But il, as is true, the
Northern radicalism is but bitter enmity to the
Shareholder, and the enmity to the institution is
carried on to destroy the upholders Of it, then it
is plain that system is likely to be desired
which will change the state of the slave, unless
for the worse.
Any wholesale abolition of slavery in the
South would of course be destruction of the
social system, and would probably result very
soon in a war of races. 1t would be in effect the
ruin of the country. Neither the people of
America, nor the world are ready for the relapse
into barbaIsm which would be the necessary re-
suit.
If we emerge from the war with united coun-
try. and Constitution unmpaired, there is rea-
son to believe that system will be sought out
by good men for putting an end to slavery and
removing the negro race; but the heavy debt OF
the nation, the necessities of Southern industry
to recuperate the South, the demands of the
North and of the world at large on the products
of the South will then operate to strengthen the
present system, and its final removal will have
been postponed, rather than accelerated by the
war.-N. Y. Journal Of Commerce.
fSD Dr. Gall Surgeon of the 18th Indiana