The Pickens sentinel. [volume] (Pickens, S.C.) 1871-1903, 1888-04-26
THE REAL SLAVE DEALERS.
HOW THE NORTH TRIES TO sHJRK
THE BURDEN OF IT'S SINS.

Plain statement OF tho FaCtE. as Derived
from Public Records and judicial De-
cisions.
TO the Editor of the News and Courier
was glad to sec your editorial on March
8 last on the Emancipation Proclama.
tiou. 1t is surprising how much igno-
rance exists upon the subject Of emanci-
patton in some of the usually best in
formed circles. I desire to call your atten,
ton to two instances of this in that
usually accurate journal, tho Nation. In
q recent number there appeared the re-
Wow of q letter written from Washington
to paper in frankfort:
"rhe condition OF our negro popula-
ton is tho subject of u Washington let.
ter in the Frankfort Heitung of Decem-
Der 81, 1887. The writer's view of their
social status is correct enough, but ho is
rather at sea in his historical retrospect,
as when he says that tho South was nj
one time more opposed to slavery than
xsns the North, and that the civil wal
was struggle between 'tho sons Of the
slavo-ownerS and the planters to whom
their fathers had sold their. dark com
modities.' There i8 corollary to the
misleading statement that in 1890 the
negroes were distributed throughout this
country, and were almost exclusively y
slaves but that, during the first quar-
ter of century, the inhabitants OF the
Northern States gradually sold their
slaves to the South, where climate and
the nature of tho agricultural products
increase the value OF negro labor all OF
which sounds as if tho countryman OF
Won Hoist had drawn his inspiration
from the o-slavery pamphlets OF Bu-
chanan's Administration.
We have not seen this letter, nor do
we know who is the writer, but if you
will allow me space I think / eau con
vince even the Nation, and it's readers
who shall happen to see the communicn.
tion, that the statements quoted are not
so wide of the mark as the Nation seems
to think.
If such as the Nation suggests was in,
deed the source Of the writer's informa
ton, can the following facts and figures
which are taken mostly from O work oil
that time, be disputed? The author from
whom / take the figures, as L canrot al
this moment put my hand upon the cen
sus of 1880, was, it is true, Rebe
brigadier, the heroic defender of NIarye'f
Heights at Fredericksburg, where he wat
killed; but all the same can the state
i1eats be denied? Cobb on Slavery
Phila9elphia, II. & [. w. Johnson & Co..
1859
BY the census of 1880 there wert
4O,370 slaves in the States north of Vir
- 8thih. Now how were those 10000
slaves emancipated? Can any one poiu
to single act by any Northern State by
which any negro was actually and i'm
mediately emancipated? We ask thi
because it is clear that all the gradua
emancipation schemes had Just the e11ec
which which the Frankfort wfiter states
to wit: it caused the inhabitants of the
Northern States generally to sell thei
slaves to the South. Laws prohibiting
slavery after some future dale wore bu
warnings to the owners of slaves to seI(
them out of the State before the Ac
should go into effect. The inevitabl,
working Of such Acts was to send til,
slaves South for sale.
Vermont, we know, claims the hoDo
Of having been the first to exclude
slavery. She claims that this was don
by her bill of rights in 1777. But til,
census Of 1890 shows seventeen slaves
1t required, it is true, no great phiIan
teen slaves; but her bill of rights coulC
not have done very perfect work sine
it allowed seventeen slaves to remain il
bonds thirteen years after its ado ption
{ Slavery, which had been introduced int
Massachusetts soon after its first settle
ment, was "tolerated," as Chief Justic
# Parsons gently expresses it, certainl
3 until the adoption of the Constitution O
= l780. Nor, indeed, did the Constitution
Of 1880, by any express provision 0
declaration, prohibit slavery But
very few days ago n letter of Mr. Thomn
jSilloway, of Boston, appeared in tn
Charleston Sun, giving instances of bill
of sale and disposition by will of India
and negro slaves in Massachusetts, o
late as It'll. DIR. Oliver Wendell HoImc
makes Old Sophy, the nurse Of ElIsi
Venner, the daughter of q slave mother
So graz. .|ual was the decadence of SLAYER
in Massac 'busetts that as late as 1888 he
Supreme o. >urt could not say by whe
specific Act the institution had bee
abolished. VIII, >chendon VS.. Hatfield,
Mass, 123; Comm 'onWealth VS.. Ave, l
Pick, 200.
Belknap's New hampshire Vol
II, $50, published 175.H Inc matter
thEs explained:
"Slavery is not prohibite, by any o2
press law. Negroes were 'eTet Vol
- sS""iASASuo III NeW IRmpSnlro.
them purchased their freedom Hnrin
the late war by serving three ycl Us
the army. Others have been made p'
by the Justice and humanity Of tn,
masters. In Massachusetts they aro u,
accounted free by the first article in the
declaration of rights, All men are born
wee and equal In the bill of rights OF
NV Hampshire the first article ls ex.
efed in these words: 'All men arc
3plg eGpally free and independent,
Wnlch, in the opinion Of most pers ms
y viii bear the same construction. Bui
others have deduoed from it this infer
\ ence, that all who are born since the
Constitution was made are free; and tha
u those who were in slavery before rolnair
SO still. o.. For this reason, in tho lat,
census, the blacks in New Hampshir,
are distinguished into free and slaves. I
! ~ y - not in my power to apologize for thi
inconsistency. 80
The author then goes on to explain, O.
y we Southerpers afterwards continued t.
dCSea4w much better off those who ver
l9yeS were than those who vuoro Fro, !,