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SLAVERY A FASHIONABLE TASTE.

equal to the white man; that slavery-subordination to the superior race is his natural and moral condition. This our Government is the first in the history of the world based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. It is upon this our social fabric is firmly planted, and I cannot permit myself to doubt the ultimate success of the full recognition of this principle throughout the civilized and enlightened world. . . . This stone which was rejected by the first builders 'is become the chief stone of the corner' in our new edifice.' "* Opinion in the South has long passed beyond the stage at which slavery needs to be defended by argument. The subject is now never touched but in a strain such as the freedom conquered at Marathon and Platea inspired in the orators of Athens. It is "the beneficent source and wholesome foundation of our civilization;" an institution, "moral and civilizing, useful at once to blacks and whites." "To suppress slavery would be to throw back civilization two hundred years." "It is not a moral evil. It is the Lord's doing, and marvellous in our eyes. divine appointment."

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But slavery in the South is something more than a moral and political principle: it has become a fashionable taste, a social passion. The possession of a slave in the South carries with it the same sort of prestige as the possession of land in this country, as the possession of a horse among the Arabs: it brings the owner into connexion with the privileged class and forms a presumption that he has attained a certain social position. Slaves have thus in the South acquired a factitious value, and are coveted with an eagerness far beyond what the intrinsic utility of their services would explain. A Chancellor of South Carolina describes slavery as in accordance with "the proudest and most deeply cherished feelings" of his countrymen- feelings, which others, if they will, may call prejudices." A governor of Kansas declares that he "loves" the institution, and that he votes for it because he "loves" it. Nor are these sentiments confined to the slaveholding minority. The all-important circumstance is that they are shared equally by the whole white population. Far from reprobating a system which has deprived them of the natural means of rising in the scale of humanity, they fall in with the prevailing modes of thought, and are warm admirers, and, when need arises, effective defenders, of an institution which has been their curse. To be the owner of a slave is the chief object of the poor white's

*Speech of Mr. A. H. Stephens, Vice-President of the Southern Confederacy, delivered March, 1861.

HOPELESSNESS OF THE SLAVE'S POSITION.

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ambition; "quot servos pascit ?" the one criterion by which he weighs the worth of his envied superiors in the social scale.

Such has been the course of opinion on the subject of slavery in the Southern States. The progress of events, far from conducing to the gradual mitigation and ultimate extinction of the system, has tended distinctly in the opposite direction to the aggravation of its worst evils and the consolidation of its strength. The extension of the area subject to the Slave Power and the increase in the slave population have augmented at once the inducements for retaining the institution and the difficulty of getting rid of it; while the ideas of successive generations, bred up in its presence and under the influence. of the interests to which it has given birth, have provided for it in the minds of the people a moral support. The result is, that the position of the slave in the Southern States at the present' time, so far as it depends upon the will and power of his masters, is in all respects more hopeless than it has ever been in any former age, or in any other quarter of the world. A Fugitive Slave law, which throws into shade the former atrocities of slavery, has been enacted, and until the recent disturbances was strictly enforced. The education of the negro is more than ever rigorously proscribed. Emancipation fiuds in the growth of fanatical pro-slavery opinions obstacles more formidable even than in the laws. Propositions have been entertained by the legislatures in some states for reducing all free coloured persons to slavery by one wholesale enactinent; in others these people have been banished from the state under pain of this fate. Everything in the laws, in the customs, in the education of the people, has been contrived with the single view of degrading the negro to the level of the brute, and blotting out from his mind the hope and even the idea of freedom.

The thoroughness-the absolute disregard of all consequences with which this purpose has been pursued, is but little understood in this country. History can supply no instance of a despotism more complete and searching than that which for some years past has prevailed in the Southern States. Since the attempt of John Brown at Harper's Ferry, its oppression has reached a height which can only be adequately described as a reign of terror. It is long since freedom of discussion on any question connected with slavery would have been tolerated. But it is not merely freedom of discussion which is now prohibited. The design seems to have been formed of putting down freedom of thought, and of banishing from the South every trace of dissentient opinion. A system of espionage has been organized. The mail bags have in many states been freely

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opened, and the postmasters of petty villages have exercised a free discretion in giving or withholding the documents entrusted to their care. In the more southern states vigilance committees have been established en permanence. Before these selfconstituted tribunals persons of unblemished reputation and inoffensive manners have been summoned, and, on a few days' notice, for no other offence than that of being known to entertain sentiments unfavourable to slavery, have been banished from the state where they resided; and this in direct violation of a specific provision of the Constitution of the United States.* Clergymen, who have broken no law, for merely discharging their duties according to their consciences, have been arrested, thrown into prison, and visited with ignominious punishment. Travellers, who have incautiously, in ignorance of the intensity of the popular feeling, ventured to give temperate expression to anti-slavery opinions, have been seized by the mob, tarred and feathered, ducked, flogged, and in some instances hanged. Nay, so sensitively jealous has the feeling of the South become, that the slightest link of connexion with a suspected localityto have resided in the North, to have sent one's children to a Northern school-is sufficient to secure expulsion from a slave

An abolitionist in the ethics of the South is the vilest of all human beings, and every one is an abolitionist who does not reside in a slave state and share to the full the prevailing proslavery sentiment. Such is the point which civilization has reached under slave institutions. At this cost the system is maintained.‡

* "The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states."

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It may readily be conceived that Southern intolerance did not relax as the great social schism approached its crisis. M. Cucheval-Clarigny gives the following vivid sketch of the measures by which unionist sentiment was overborne in the South: 'Chaque jour on voyait arriver, dans les états du centre ou de l'ouest, des gens qui avaient été dénoncés comme mal pensans, et qui avaient reçu, par lettre anonyme, l'invitation d'emigrer dans les vingt-quatre heures, sous peine de voir leur maison incendiée et de recevoir un coup de couteau. Les journaux de la NouvelleOrléans, qui combattaient la séparation, furent contraints l'un après l'autre de cesser leur publication ou de changer complétement de langage. Dans les villes un peu importantes du sud, des bandes armées parcouraient les rues, précédées d'un drapeau avec le palmier, et des menaces de mort étaient proférées devant les maisons des gens suspects d'attachement à l'Union. Quand une législature paraissait hésiter devant un vote belliqueux, on tenait des réunions publiques pour gourmander sa lenteur, et on lui adressait des objurgations. On ne parlait de rien moins en effet dans certains états que de faire voter des mesures d'exception, l'emprisonnement ou l'exile des suspects, et la confiscation de leurs biens."—Annuaire des Deux Mondes, 1860, p. 617.

The Reign of Terror in the South, &c. pussim; also Reports of the American Anti Slavery Society, for the veats 1857-50.

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ITS AGGRESSIVE CHARACTER.

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CHAPTER VI.

EXTERNAL POLICY OF SLAVE SOCIETIES.

In the foregoing chapters an attempt has been made to analyze the system of society presented in the Slave States, and to ascertain the direction in which, under ordinary circumstances, and in the absence of intervention from without, the development of such a system proceeds; and the result of an examination, as well of the several elements of which the whole society is composed as of their joint action, has been to show that it is essentially retrograde in its character, containing within it no germs from which improvement can grow, and no forces competent to counteract those which press it downwards. In the remaining portion of this essay I shall endeavour to exhibit the working of this system in the politics of the Union ; and as, in relation to the people who compose it, the social system of the Slave States has been seen to be retrograde, so, in relation to other societies with which it may come into contact, it will be found to be aggressive-to be constantly urged by exigencies, which it cannot control, to extend its territory, and by an ambition not less inevitable to augment its power.

area.

The aggressive character of a social system deriving its strength from slavery-that is to say of a Slave Power-proceeds primarily from the well-known economic fact, already more than once adverted to-the necessary limitation of slaveculture to soils of more than average richness, combined with its tendency to exhaust them. It results from this that societies based upon slavery cannot, like those founded upon free industrial institutions, take root, grow, and flourish upon a limited To secure their vigour, their roots must be always spreading. A constant supply of fresh soils of high fertility becomes, therefore, an indispensable requisite for the permanent industrial success of such societies. This is a fundamental principle in their political economy, and one which, we shall find, exercises a powerful influence on the course of their general history. As the principle will hereafter be frequently referred to, it is important to observe that it is one about which no controversy can be said to exist, being as fully recognized by the upholders as by the opponents of slavery. "There is not a slaveholder," says Judge Warner of Georgia, "in this

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SLAVERY MIGRATORY.

house or out of it, but who knows perfectly well that, whenever slavery is confined within certain specified limits, its future existence is doomed; it is only a question of time as to its final destruction. You may take any single slaveholding county in the Southern States, in which the great staples of cotton and sugar are cultivated to any extent, and confine the present slave population within the limits of that county. Such is the rapid natural increase of the slaves, and the rapid exhaustion of the soil in the cultivation of those crops (which add so much to the commercial wealth of the country), that in a few years it would be impossible to support them within the limits of such county. Both master and slave would be starved out; and what would be the practical effect in any one county, the same result would happen to all the slaveholding States. Slavery cannot be confined within certain specified limits without producing the destruction of both master and slave; it requires fresh lands, plenty of wood and water, not only for the comfort and happiness of the slave, but for the benefit of the owner."*

It is further important to observe that the internal organization of slave societies adapts them in a peculiar manner for a career of constant expansion. "In free communities property becomes fixed in edifices, in machinery, and in improvements of the soil. In slave communities there is scarcely any property except slaves, and they are easily movable. The freeman embellishes his home; the slaveholder finds nothing to bind him to soils which he has exhausted. Freedom is enterprising, but not migratory as slavery is. It is not in the nature of slavery to become attached to place. It is nomadic. The slaveholder leaves his impoverished fields with as little reluctance as the ancient Scythian abandoned cropped pastures for fresh ones, and slaves are moved as readily as flocks and herds."+

Slavery thus requires for its success a constantly expanding field. It is also to be noted that within this field it is exclusive of all other industrial systems. It is true, indeed, that there exists in certain districts through the Slave States a considerable free population engaged in regular industry; but this forms no real exception to the essential exclusiveness of slave societies. These settlements of free farmers occur only where, from some cause, slavery has disappeared from tracts of country large enough to form the abode of distinct societies; as in Western Virginia, where the exhaustion of the soil, under a long continued cultivation by slaves, compelled at one time an

* Progress of Slavery, p. 227.

+ Ibid., p. 8.

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