Year: 1859



 to make money, and add to his available force. He can, Therefore, with the same annual income buy twenty, instead of ten hahds.i The shareholders, above all others, are most interested in the reduction of prices:

 it is the property he wants, and the lower the price, the more they can buy.

 1 They are interested in another way in this question. It is no speculation or imaginary interest, but vital interests It is in the permanency and stability of the institution. \ Every steamboat or railroad Car that comes From the North or East is freightcd with ne- groes purchased in Maryland, Virginia, Ken lucky or Missouri. You have now no other

 market, and negroes you will have, cost 1 what they may. Every negro you bring from these States, you lessen the strength of the institution there. One mann reason which

 induces them to sell, is the high prices. You

 are therefore, first tempting them to sell and then paying them to abandon the institution.

 Lower the prices and get your supplies else

 where, and these States will be compelled to be loyal to the institution, and to stand by you in veal or woe but buy all they have

 and they will no longer sympathize with, much less stand by you As matter then, of

 self-defence and self-preservation the slave holders should seek another market from

 which to get their supplies.i

 But there is still another reason why the shareholders should not only desire, but de-

 mand the trade to be re-opened. It is that this species of property may be more gene

 rally difused among our own people. Our

 own census discloses the startling fact that less than one-third of the voters in Mississip D. ] nj are slave owners The same state of af- fairs, or nearly so, exists in most of the cot- I ton States. a a

 l If they should come to the conclusions to

 which the Abolitionists are now stimulating l them, they will be much more fearfully to be ! dreaded than all the Stewards, Hales, and l Garrisons north of Mason and Dixon's line.

 It is a sleeping lion among us, and shoulder l ing volcano beneath us. Even under our

 distribution and exemption laws this thing

 must and will continue, under the present high prices. A non-slave-ho older can scarcely ever I hope to be able to buy a negro while he has

 to pay fifteen hundred dollars for one, but

 when they sell for half that sum, he can and

 will buy. The policy of enabling every man l among us to own negro, must strike every

 one with force. No conflict of interest would

 then jar upon the body polite. No legisla- ting for classes growing out of this species of

 property. No jealousies against those who l own, by those who do not, and no domestic I foes could then be found in our camp. One

 common interest and one common destiny H would stimulate and await us all; and when l the time comes that we shall have to defend this institution with more than talk, union

 among ourselves will make ns impregnable. 1 This desirable and necessary consummation

 can never take place while negroes are so

 scarce and 90 high. Reo open this trade and lredace the price, and it will gradually be ac-

 complished.

 l Another objection, alike unsustained, is,

 that if this trade is re-opened, our country !, will be overrun and surfeited with negroes,

 and that eventually we will have to abandon

 the country to them By reference to the

 statistics shown above, it will be perceived I that danger is at once dtssipated at8 s.s l We have now two whites to one black Tn l the slave States, and no one can doubt that if the matter were reversed the danger would

 be as little as it now is indeed, you may | make the blacks four to one, yes, eight to

 one, and still the danger is imaginary. l Whenever the demand is supplied we will q cease to buy, aud of course they will cease to

 be imported. Like all other trade, it will

 regulate itself. @

 l In Athens, there were thirteen times as many Slaves free people. In Sparta, the

 very cradle of liberty and Gibralter of strength, there were thirty-one thousand free citizens,

 and two hundred and twenty thousand Helots, who were degraded slaves, and one hundred and twenty thousand intermediate people, not

 entitled to political privileges. .s ~.. s

 According to Gibbon, there were as many

 slaves as free citizens in the whole Roman

 empire at one time. No inconvenience result l tu tO ticSC HdtlOHo IoA VIII At WIFI bC tHp 1 case with us, if the people are left to govern Al their own slaves, without the interference oi | the government

 I These objections are fallacious and delusory t when applied to our present limits, and when

 applied to the limits we intend to have, and

 will have, they scarcely deserve notice.

 To reopen this trade, the South would ac-

 quire political strength. Every five Africans imported would be equal to three white men

 God knows we need it for already has the

 North manufactured her ropes and forged the

 chains to bind us hand and foot. Already by the influence of emigrants have they swellet

 their population, and settled up their prairies

 and cut down their forests. until they out number us, more than two to one.

 One leading reason why the resources ol

 the South are developed so slowly, is because we have no labor to spare from the farms al ready opened, and but few emigrants come among us. Reopen the African slave trade and give us plenty of cheap labor, and oul deep forests will soon fall by the woodman'

 axe, our wide prairies will groan under tn rich, ripe harvest, and our wilderness literally

 blossom like the rose; and, at the same time our influence in the government will rapidl,

 increase. s 4 sss.-srsf ..f s Texas has been in the Union dozen years and her settlements are but specks upon he

 broad surface while the wild Indian and tn 2 buffalo roam undisturbed, where the plow mans furFoW should be seen, and the neehan ic's hammer heard.

 Arkansas, too, has been State much longer t and yet she has but two members of Congress

 while her rich minerals and broad plains, an l productive savannas, ,stillTemainundisiurbed t all for the want of cheap labor. .s No one doubts the energy and enterprise Q 7 the Southern people. Give them the means l and they will almost tunnel under the sun [ { accomplish their ends Tied down as the are now, by these stringent and unconstitu tional laws of Congress, they are compelie to finger like great sloth

 r Gentlemen, having briefly stated the consti . tional argument, and, as we hope, shown nc l [only the policy, but the absolute necessity Q n re-opening this trade, what should be done b g the people of the South, and what should | 2 done by your body, about to assemble t Vicksburg? s u e ~ l Shall we, and will you advise us to stan 2 still, until heartless and fanatical maJorit e shall get possession of the Government, whic 1 will not only not repeal those obnoxious law T but pass others, still more stringent and odious s Shall we fold our arms still longer, while th ,, rights of the States are crushed and mangle, T and the colossal consolidation principle l. inangurated and mare firmly established, a 3, Washington?

 We do hope not. Let us act together, al ,e denand Of Gonsrrage tha reneal of thesn ahom