The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1862-04-25
The Suicide of Slavery.

From the Chicago Post.
Until the breaking out of the war slavery
in the states had protection stronger than
constitutions or laws. The American PEG.
pie as whole were law abiding PEG.
pie, and respectors of the rights OF others.
Slavery is intolerant and it begat intoler-
ance. Slavery and anti.slavery fought
each other with desperation and venom,
and though the people from time to time
would get agitated and excited, they took
really no side with either faction in demands
for unconstitutional action. Up to the
breaking out of the war, there was not and
had not been member of Congress ever
elected in the United States who claimed
that Congress had the right to emancipate
by legislation slaves held in slave states.
Every convention of every party expressly
repudiated any such authority. The fugi.
tive slave law was framed by s'aveholdiDg
members of Congress, and made to suit their
notions of what was right. A northern
President with cabinet composed in part
of northern men of eminent ability ap-
proved the act. For ten years that act was
enforced at the north, and as Mr.. Douglas
said in his last speech, the complaint was
now that even in Chicago it was too Wig
orously enforced. Under the Constitution
and the Union, slavery in the states was as
secure from invasion as it had been at any
period since the revolut on.
But the fell spirit of discomfort, fattered
into hopes of successful rebellion by north
ern men, induced South Carolina, who had
never lost slave, to precipitate the coun
try into civil war, and shake to its fOunda>
tioDs the American Union. That war, as
we have said time and again, will need no
emancipation Or confscation measures to
aid 1t in crushing the vitality of slavery.
In Maryland, so utterly has the property
ceased to be profitable, that owners have
ceased all Efforts to reclaim or recapture
such of their negroes as decamp. Those
who chose to remain are of course retained,
but those who do not wish to be slaves,
may be said, are virtually free. In Virginia
the war has broken up the domestic econo.
my of the large agricultural districts, and
for year masters and owners have been off
to the war; the women and children re-
moved to places of safety, and the negroes
left to take care of themselves. Thousands
are seeking homes and freedom far from the
homes of their masters, while others, conf.
dent that their former owners will never
return to claim them, are hanging around
the national armies, and making what they
can pecuniarily, either by labor or by the
sale of "produee" obtained from abandoned
or i'll guarded estates. From the Ohio to
the York river, slavery may be said to have
already ceased to exist in Virginia. Prac-
tically, it has ceased to be profitable, and
its extinction is an inevitable and rapid
consequence of that result.
The senator from Missouri stated in the
Senate day or two ago that the number of
slaves in that state had in all probability
dwindled from the liz 900 which were there
one year ago to less than $4,000. Missouri
may be said to be free state henceforth.
Tennessee is the next 10 the order. Her
slaves are now more numerous than her able
bodied white men. Her able bodied white
men are serving in the rebel armies or are
lingering in northern prisons. The slaves
are at liberty almost to do what they please.
That thousands of them have already sought
freedom is beyond all question. And the
continuation of the war six months longer
will so demoralize and destroy the institu-
ton of slavery in Tennessee that it will not
be worth preserving.
-Four states taken from the number of
slaveholding states is large contraction of
their political power. But the greatest
loss to slavery is the revolution it has worked
in the moral and political opinions of the
people of the north. There, the south has
lost more than even in the loss OF states and
the flight of slaves.