Year: 1861

Slavery and the Rebellion.


The Philadelphia Press says that it is a
significant and singular fact that out of the
very prosperity of the slave interest in this
country, indirectly, arose the rebellion which


now threatens to terribly ipjure, if not to


destroy it. While the halls of Congress


were resounding year after year with clamors


tor better protection for slavery, the "pecu-


Lar institution" was so well protected that


slaves were constantly rising in value much


more rapidly than any other species of prop


erty in our country. This increase was not


spasmodic or irregular, but steady and con.


slant, and it was kept up until the slaves of


the United States sold for a price far be.
yond that ever obtained for them in any
other nation in which slavery had been tol-
Grated. All this continued to the moment


when the long cherished Secession heresies


OF the South eliminated in open insurrec.


tion against the Government and it afford


ed the very strongest proof that could have


been given of the confidence of the capital


lists of the slave States in the security of
slavery while the Union was unbroken and


unassailed. But out OF this high price of
slaves, which was an overwhelming and
conclusive answer to the fimsy pretences
by which the Secession demagogues en-
deavored to justify their treason, arose the
very feeling which was one of the strongest
levers used in precipitating the Cotton
States into Revolution. We allude to
the demand for the revival of the
slave trade which suddenly attained sur
prisiDg degree of popularity in that Sec
tion. The planters grew tired of payirg
81 400 or $1,5O0 for field hands from the
border States, and the poor whites began
to consider that there was something very
unjust in compelling them either to pay for
slaves a sum which they could not com.
mand, or to dispense with their services
altogether, when by an abrogation of the
United States laws against the African
slave trade they might obtain supplies for
few hundred dollars per head. The disso,
luton of the Union, which, until the last
few years, was rarely or never spoken of
without horror, as one of the most frightful
of calami les, by the masses of the Cotton
States, began to be considered by them an
essential condition Of their prosperity-not
on account of the reasons they put forward,
that slave property was insecure in the
Union, but really because the policy of our
Government had rendered it so secure and
profitable that slaves commanded higher
price than they wished to pay. These
pro slavery philosophers, however, were
as short.sigbted in their views of their sell
fish interests as they were cruel and trea-
sonable in their designs. They forgot that
the first effect of their blows against the
Union would be the infiction of terrible
blow, by themselves, upon their favorite
institution-that in trying to destroy the
Union for the purpose of getting rid of its
laws against the revival of the slave trade,
so that they might buy slaves for small
sum, they would so diminish the value of
slave labor, destroy the sale of its products,
and undermine the permanence and security
of the institution as to render it doubtful
whether slaves we're worth having at any
price, and in some States, questionable
whether they could be held in bondage at
all. The comparison may be trite and
not very complimentary one, but they acted
like the dog who in crossing the stream lost
his meat by grasping at its shadow. And
now, whatever damage has been or may be
done to their institution, they must attribute
to the influence of the rash counsels of their
own trusted leaders. Whatever glory or
shame may be attached to the inAiction of
the severe blows upon it, that have already
injured or will hereafter injure it, is due to
those great practical Abolitionists in dis.
yuise who figure as the saints of the pro.
slavery calendar. .o,..,s.s..