Year: 1869

ny WHICH Tue country was preclpltated
into a bloody civil war, derived its
chief impulse from political ambition.
The Garrison Phillips abolitionists were
indeed mere fanatics, or, if you please,
philanthropists, without political hopes
or aspirations; but if the anti-sIavery
movement had been left in their hands,
it would have resulted in nothing but
empty agitation among a small band of
headlong, exCitable people. Itwas not
till calculating politicians took it up,
and saw that political capital could Be
made out of it, that, it assumed formid-
able proportions and convulsed the
country. The politicians did not aim
at the abolition of slavery, but to play
upon the natural repugnance of North
ern citizens to that institution, as a
means Of building up political party
and gaining control Of the Federal gov
erment. They steadily disclaimed any
intention to disturb slavery in the
States"


The above is the beginning of a long
article in the New York World of Maych
Sltt, headed Rewards of Political Alb.
olitionists." The whole article is wor-
thy attention as well for its errors as
its truths, in both of which it abounds.
The first declarations are the most glar-
ing and daring blasphemies to be found
in human language; downright denials
that humanity, love of justice and lib
erty, or any sense of religious obliga-
tion can ever animate the human soul.
For surely if the American slave sys-
TEN, vaccinated into the young Amer
lean colonies by the mother country
from her own scrofulous, polluted veins,
and continued under the revolutionary,
republican government until the whole
body politic was one ghastly cancer,
betokening speedy dissolution, if that
could not and did not awaken at last
the sympathy, the conscience, the most
solemn sense of religious duty to God
and man, then is bald Atheism which
denies not only God and the soul, but
all moral and religious obligation, all
sense ofjustice, all regard for right and
righteousness, the only Faith worry the
human race. No man of manly feel
ings, who had ever contemplated what
slavery was as it existed in the south
ern states for three-quarters of a CEN
tury, would ever make such confession
as in the two first periods extracted
above. That it was in its midest form,
robbery, adultery and murder, was
proved out of its own statute books.
From 1888 to 1903, it was permitted
constitutional indulgence to ravage
Africa and supply the plantation VIC
Tins, by what was called "the African
Slave Trade" Afterwards, that hor-
rible commerce was decreed to be pi-
rucy, punishable with death. But this
was not until Virginia had commenced
the breeding of slaves for the southern
market, and the African trade inter-
fered with her staple, her most profta-
bic business. Then the African slave
trade was solemnly declared by the
government to be "i,reConciLable Nth tie
principles of justice and humanity" and
baptized by the odious name of Piracy,
it was death by act of Congress to en-
gage in it.


But the domestic traffic was no less
piracy, at so far as the victims them
selues were concerned. All the infamy
and cruelty of the foreign trade reap
peared in the domestic, and in some
respects tile atrocities were even great
er. Large numbers of women and
few men were kept on the breeding
farms. White overseers were not only
encouraged, but sometimes even paid
10 increase the number and to i'm
prove the color of the stock of slaves
by infusion of their own loathsome
blood. The resemblance of many
slave children to their masters and own
ers was always observed and often re-
ported by travellers and others not Of,
though often in, the slave-breeding dis
tricts. So that if the African trade was
piracy because "irreconcilable with the
principles of justice and humanity"
what was the domestic when the abom-
ination OF breeding the victims was in
separately connected with iti


That slavery was wholesale robbery
was also seen in its own definition of
itself It's own universally declared
and accepted code was, that ga slave
is one who is completely in the power
of the master to whom he belongs
"a slave can do nothing, acquire moth
hing, possess nothing which does not
belong to bis master" And this re.
lated to wives and children as much as
to the products of the potato patch or
hen roost in which sometimes, under
a humane master, he was INDUCED.
Slavery, even in Massachusetts, while
it existed there, was in this respect no
better than further south, as witness
the following marriage form used under
the laws of the colony:


"You s. do now in ye Presence of
God, and these Witnesses, take r: to
be your Wife;


''Promising, that so far as shall be
consistent with the relation which you
now Sustain as aServant, you will Per-
form .ye Part of an Husband towards
her: And in particular, you Promise
that you will Love her: And that, as
you shall have ye Opportunity q Abil-
ity you will take a proper Care Of her