The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1863-02-21
IncOmpatibiIity of Slavery with a Free
Government for Whites.

dency of African slavery is to destroy the
freedom of the white population wherever
it is established. Colonel A. J. Hamilton
is one of these. Mr.. Lorenzo Sherwood,
long domiciliated in Texas, is another. This
gentleman, in October last, made at Cham
plain, in this state, speech in which he
not only showed this to be the inevitable
consequence of the institution of slavery,
but cited the authority of the slaveholding
politicians themselves, to show that they
both saw the incompatibility of slavery with
a popular government, and desired to has
ten the time when they could restrict politi-
cal rights to an hereditary order of men.
Some of the proofs of this are curious
enough. Mr.. Sherwood quoted Mr.. Spratt,
the noted South Carolina seeessionist, In she
following passage:
"1e assumed that there was no man in
the South who deserved the name of states
man who would pretend that secession was
caused by any aggression of the North upon
the rights of the South-that 1T was still
less the result of any act of oppression on
the part of the United States government
that the reason was because of the difference
in the organization of society North and
South'-'It was because, in the non-slave-
holding states, from the very fact that every
man was freeman, being freeman, the
result was that the laboring class in the
onslaveholding states had the power of
government, and it required but little argu-
ment to prove when that was the case, gov
eminent, instead of being in the head, was
in the heels of society," Mr.. Spratt further
assumed that mo greater truth was ever ut
tered than that uttered by Mr.. Seward, when
be said, there was an irrepressible conflict
between the two systems of society,""
On the Sd of May, 1861, M. r. H. Gar
nett, of Virginia, wrote letter to William
H. Prescott, of South Carolina, which was
captured not long ago among other papers
on Barnwell's Island by General Hunter
In it he says:
Il must acknowledge, my dear sir, thst
look to the future with almost as much
apprehension as hope. You well object to
the term democrat. Democracy, in its
original philosophical sense, is, indeed, in
compatible with slavery and the whole sys-
tenn of southern society,""
Mr.. Sherwood quotes from a speech made
in the Vicksburg Secession Convention of
1859:
e" While our population has advanced,
there has been no proportionate advance
ment in the number of slaves. The widen
ing West has made demand of slaves upon
the older states-the older states have been
compelled to yield to such exaction. With
every transportation there was hireling labor
ready to supply its place: with hireling
labor came the form and spirit of democra-
cy. Ii made its way across the border--it
overspread the states of Delaware and Mary
land-it extended in the states of Kentucky,
Missouri and Virginia--it entered into
southern cities-it glided into schools and
crept about the halls of legisla-
ton, and so it is, that we are not alone in
the contest with the North, which bears the
banners of democracy, but with the democ-
racy itself within the states, the cities and
the institutions of the South The speaker
assumed, that, if this democracy could not
be got rid of, 'the separation from the North
would merely adjourn the contest THAT. 'as
this southern democracy grapples slavery in
its homes, aud on its hearthstones, slavery
was like the Thracian horse that bore its
rider from the field, and that, escaping enc
mics abroad, it would be forced to wage a
still more deadly contest with its enemies
at home"
Here is another testimony of the same
sort:
'In an essay written by J. Quitman
Moore, of Mississippi, and published III the
Charleston Mercury, and repubished in De
BOa0's Reviea0 in 1861, the author, in revile-
ment of the democratic principle, says:
''Fhose pestilent and pernicious dogmas
."the greatest good of the greatest num-
ber''-''the majority shall rule''-are, in
their practical application. the frightful
source of disorders never to be quoted
PHILOSOPHERS the most false, and passions the
In America, says this author, by reason
of the operation of causes wholly extraneous
to the considerations of government and So
ciety, the republican experiment has been
prolonged beyond recorded precedent; but,
painful as the reflection must be to all such
as subscribed to the Utopian philosophy and
have an abiding faith in the capacity of mBn
for enlightened self-rule, it must be confess
ed that the experiment of the democratic
Republic of America has failed The au-
thor concludes, that the institution of an
hereditary Senate and Executive is the polit
ical form best suited to the genius and most
of the ideas of the South -
Mr.. Sherwood proceeds to argue strongly
against Cancellation as one gross delusion,
to point out the necessity of exterminating
slavery as the only safeguard to the liberty
of the whites, to show that we cannot, with
any safety to the free states, allow a separa
ton Of thesU Union, and to dwell upon the
importance of resolution and united effort
in the cause in which we are engaged.
The speech is an excellent tract for the
times, and We are glad to hear that it is to
be republished in cheap form and widely
distributed
The proportion of boys to girls born in
time Of war is often stated to be greater than
during the .'piping times of peace" The