The Newberry herald and news. (Newberry, S.C.) 1884-1903, 1893-05-24

j him that he South had dore just what
New England desired her to do-that
is to secede.
This desperate haste and intensi-
fed hostility on the part of New En-
gland toward the South is difficult to
explain. It was only few years since
they had had emancipated the slaves
they had not sold. 1t was less than
twenty years since England had eman-
cipated hers, and neither Georgia nor
her sister States were ready for the
change.
Was it an earnest sympathy for the
slaves or political hatred of their
masters or both ? for as Judge Tour
gee says in bis "Fool's Errand"- "The
South had controlled the government
for fifty years, and New England was
jealous-jealous to evaporation, and
slavery was but the shibboleth that in
tensified their aninlosity. They made
no war upon the slave trade, but rather
winked at it and enjoyed its rich re.
turns. "This is not an assertion but a
fact, if their own historians are to be
believed. In 1920 Justice Story, the
great jurist, charged the grand juries OF
his New England circuit in the follow
ing words:
1--WE have but too many undeniable
proofs from unquestionable sources
that the African slave trade is still
carried on among US with all the i'm
placable ferocity and Unsuitable rapacity
of former times. Avarice has grow q
more subtle in its evasions Of the law
1t watches and siezes its prey with an
appetite quickened rather than sup.
pressed. American citizens are STEPPED
up 10 their very mouths in this in
iquity."
". w. Story, the gifted son, in
writing the biography of bis father
says: "The fortunes of many men OF
prominence were secretly invested in
this infamous traffic. Slavery itself
had hardly disappeared in New En-
gland when the traffic took on new
life and was winked at. A man might
still have position in society and claim
consideration asa gentlemen, nay as a
Christian, while his ships were
freighted with human cargoes and his
commerce was in the blood and pain of
his fellow creatures. This practice
was abstractly inveighed against, but
was secretly INDUCED in. The chances
of great fortunes infamed the cupidity
! of men in my fathers circuit. It is
notorious that many large fortunes were
the blood money of the slave trade,
and owed their existence to the
wretched cargoes that survived the
horrors of the middle passage. But
this charge of my father to the grand
juries of Massachusetts and Rhode Is,
land seemed only to arouse the passions
of those engaged in the traffic. The
newspapers of the day publicly de.
nouuced my father and one paper in
Boston declared that any judge who
would deliver such charge ought to
be hurled from the bench"
And so the train went on unmolested.
The New York Evening Post stated
that no less than eighty-five vessels
left the port of New York in 1859 and
1860, built, manned and equipped in
New England for the African slave
trade, and that they brought away not
less than thirty thousand slaves tc
Brazil and the south. But still there
were no prosecutions. The navies Of
the world seemed to be asleep or per:
haps the traffic was still winked at by
the merchant ships that traversed the
seas. Whether it has ceased since
southern slavery was abolished is not
known, but telegram to the Asso'
ciated Press tells of a cargo that was
recently wrecked off Madagascar coast.
This much has been recorded to show
to the youths of this generation that
neither Georgia nor the South was
responsible for slavery nor the traffic
in them across the seas, for from 177t
down to the present, there was but s
single attempt made by southern man
to introduce African slaves into q
Southern port, and that attempt was a
failure. The little yacht called the
"Wanderer," was seized and con.
demned and her officers pursued with
unrelenting vigor by Southern man.
General Henry R. Jackson, who was
then assistant attorney general Of the
United States.
But, after all, slavery was really the
provoking cause of the late un'
happy war between the States. Georgia
seeded from the Union not because
she desired to perpetuatc slavery, but
rather because she could not maintain
her rights under the constitution. She
desired an outlet in the territories, an
outlet for the negro for their rapid in.
crease was alarming. She believed
that it was perilous to emancipate and
still more perilous to await results. Hel
white population who were not slave
owners were rapidly emigrating to the
west. The most thoughtful minds ir
Georgia and especially those advanced
in years, saw and felt the peril of theil
siluation-secession meant war and tc
remain in the Union was to be impris.
oned by state lines with an inferior race
that might become terror. A few
slaves had been manumitted and sent
to Liberia, but the result was bad, very
bad.
Major Waters, wealthy planter q
Gwinnett County, had by will manu-
mitted thirty-seven slaves and biz
| oyecnfor delivered them in Savannah