Year: 1865

India islands, as evidences Of ths'ruin


which slave emancipation brings upon
the agricultural and industrial interests
Of country? Slavery is now abol1hcd
BY their own Government throughout
the United States, and VIC would Ike the
Northern Conservatives to tell 10 Why
tho results of such . measure, if it could
be carried out, would be different il the
Southern States from the West India
islands? They must now perceive, if
they are not willfally blind, that whilst,
before the late abolition legislation Of
Congress, the re-establishment Of the
old Government was Of vital import1uce
to Northern commercial interests.
its re-establishment now could only
have the. effect upon those interests
that the abolition Of negro slavsly has
produced in all other parts Of the world.
Cotton, rice and sugar cannot be culti>
vatcd except by negro labor, and negro
labor, especially the labor of suddenly
emancipated slaves, set free in a pa
roxysm of national philanthropy, and
unaccustomed to habits of self-reliance
and self"government, is phenomenon
which the world has not yet witnessed.
The commercial interests of the North
have now more to expect from the sue
cess than the defeat of the Confederate
cause. With our independence, slavery
will still exist to produce the great sta
pies of commerce, and the North, with
the restoration of peace and commercial
relations, could reap advantages from it
which no other nation is in position to
obtain. With our overthrow, the corner
stone of their own industrial interests
goes down, never to be restored. We
submit that the late legislation of the


Federal Congress has withdrawn from


the so called Conservative classes Of the


North the principal reason for their sup.
port of the war, and furnished them a


powerful motive in behalf Of peace.


Equally illusory, it seems to us, is the
conceit that internal stability and quiet
will follow the overthrow of Southern
independence. There is. no reliable
foundation for concord and security in
any country except liberty and justice.


Where people are, or conceive them
selves to be, deprived Of both, they will
never give up the hope of reclaiming
them till they cease to exist. Here the
determination theory comes in as an in
fallible panacea for the recovery of quiet
and order. But even if it were practi-
cable, it could not reach the causes Of
sectional agitation, which must be looked
for, not in the South, but in the class and
sectional legislation of the North. If
the South should prove worth having
under the new order Of things, New Eng
land must cease to be New England if
it does not seek to burthen the new pro-
prietors with tariff and tribute, just as it
did the old, and the new population will
resent the infliction, and resist it, first by
and then by the sword, just
as the South has done. But there are
causes Of disorganization in the very
constitution of a democracy. which
always have, and always will, rem
der it the most unstable of go.
vernments. To universal suffrage we
may trace, in a considerable degree.
the evils we are now suffering, and what
must be its power for mischief when it is
extended not only to the ignorant foreign
mercenaries of the United States army,
but to the millions Of suddenly-emanci-
pated African slaves If these last are
emancipated, without the rights Of citi-
zenship, will they be likely to remain
quiet and content? 1t ought to be re-
membered that they will then be accus,-
toned to the use Of arms, and their
numbers be no longer contemplate from
ignorance of military affairs. If they
are endowed with the right Of suffrage,
what beundless field for demagoguism
of the lowest and vilest typel 1t will
be putting firebrands in the hands Of
madmen. We address these reflections
only to that class of Northern men which
haa raallu holieved fha infAresfs of Amo.