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THE SOUTH: 
 
 A LETTER 
 
 F R O M 
 
 A FRIEND IN THE NORTH 
 
 WITH 
 
 SPECIAL REFERENCE 
 
 TO THE EFFECTS OF 
 
 DISUNION UPON SLAVERY. 
 , ^*~ ^ 
 
 I 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : 
 
 PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR, 
 
 BY C. SHERMAN & SON. 
 
 1856. 
 
e T 
 
 C-7 
 
 THE SOUTH. 
 
 A NATIVE of Virginia, long resident in Pennsylva 
 nia, I have for nearly thirty years been an attentive 
 listener to the various discussions which have arisen 
 between the South and the North. The class to which 
 I belong is perhaps better able to keep balanced minds 
 on some of those exciting topics than those who are 
 more immediately engaged better than natives of 
 the North or residents of the South. It seems to me 
 much more rare too for the natives of the South, to 
 lose their sympathies with the place of their birth, 
 than for those who go from the North to reside in the 
 South. I feel quite sure that I have not lost my 
 capacity, nor my disposition to weigh calmly, all the 
 questions which pertain to Southern interests or in 
 stitutions. I send you the gathered thought of some 
 twenty years on the relations of South and North, as 
 they apply to what seems to be the present condition 
 of these controversies. I send them to you. not as 
 argument nor as information, but as suggestions. 
 
 The subject of Slavery is of course the main topic. 
 I can well remember the feeling of indignation and 
 sorrow with which I beheld the rising cloud of Aboli 
 tionism. When no larger than a man s hand, it had 
 a look of mischief, which its history has more than 
 
 (3) 
 
4 RISE OF ABOLITIONISM. 
 
 verified. It has more sins to answer for than any 
 excitement which has yet prevailed in this country. 
 It found the whole people of the United States opposed 
 to slavery. It was rare to find an intelligent man in 
 all the Southern States, whose sentiments on the sub 
 ject of slavery differed from those of Washington, 
 Jefferson, and Madison. Now, thousands upon thou 
 sands profess to be the advocates of the institution 
 for its own social value, and the whole South is said 
 to be arrayed as one man in its defence, upon its own 
 merits. But this is not all. The rabid fanatics of 
 the North have goaded the South until they have 
 roused a class of fanatics there, not less mischievous 
 nor less disposed to assume dangerous responsibilities 
 than those of the North. The reciprocal action of 
 these two classes of fanatics, with passions far out 
 weighing their judgments, has now produced a state 
 of things fraught with no little danger to the whole 
 country. While Northern fanaticism chiefly claimed 
 our attention, I thought nothing of the kind could be 
 more revolting and detestable; but I confess to a 
 change of mind; for the fanaticism of the South has 
 outdone that of the North. The Northern lights 
 may well retire from the contest, for they have con 
 jured up a spirit which threatens to accomplish their 
 worst aims more rapidly than any efforts of theirs. 
 They have apparently succeeded in bringing on that 
 madness which precedes destruction. 
 
 I do not doubt that in the order of Providence 
 Slavery is a path from savage to civilized life. The 
 history of the world abounds in proofs of this. In 
 the dawn of history, the masses were slaves. It was 
 so at the advent of Christianity; no progress had 
 
THE TRUE PRINCIPLE OF SLAVERY. 5 
 
 then been made in emancipation. Christianity recog 
 nised the relation, and pointed out the duties of both 
 master and slave. It did not assail the relation, it 
 did not rudely and instantly sever it, but it certainly 
 did lay very heavy responsibilities upon the con 
 science of the master. It required him to do for his 
 slaves all that was in his power; to train them to 
 industry, to habits of labor, to skill in husbandry, 
 and other arts of life ; to make them willing and to 
 fit them for eating their bread in the sweat of their 
 brows ; to rescue them from savage life, to civilize 
 and Christianize them, and to do this as soon as prac 
 ticable, whether it required one or more generations 
 of time. The master is the patriarch of his people 
 they are his children; he is their guardian; they 
 his wards. The question of emancipation must un 
 doubtedly arise soon or late, and be studied in the 
 light of the best interests of both parties. The slave 
 on his part must pay for this care and guardianship; 
 he must pay for his lessons and habits of industry ; 
 he must pay for his advancement to civilization : for 
 the savage or the mere denizen of the forest or wilds 
 of nature, can never be trained to industry and civi 
 lization but under some degree of compulsion. Seldom 
 have any emerged from this condition but under the 
 power of discipline. Whether the children of 
 Africa are better as they were, or as they are in this 
 country, it is not difficult to decide, even as things 
 now are ; but if the masters in this country were 
 doing their whole duty, who but an abolitionist would 
 not desire to see every uncivilized African in such 
 bondage ? Who can deny that American slaves are 
 in a condition immeasurably better than the natives 
 
6 PREMATURE EMANCIPATION. 
 
 of Africa, who murder and enslave each other with 
 out mercy and without a particle of advantage ? The 
 native Africans around Liberia, look upon the citizens 
 of that republic as a superior order of beings. 
 
 Emancipation is a question which belongs to the 
 master: he is made the judge, and on him rests the 
 responsibility. It is a serious question. The slaves 
 are neither to be retained too long, nor turned adrift 
 too soon. He is bound to prepare them for freedom, 
 for usefulness, for all the duties of civilized life. He 
 must not emancipate them to make their condition 
 worse, no more than a parent may send his children 
 into the world without due training and preparation. 
 Under the influences of Christianity, but without 
 comprehending its true spirit, which requires more 
 of the master than emancipation, vast numbers of 
 slaves were unwisely, because prematurely, emanci 
 pated during the first three or four centuries of Chris 
 tianity. The multitudes thus unhappily turned adrift 
 in masses, fell below the condition of slavery, and 
 the disadvantage followed their descendants for ages; 
 in the opinion of some, it still follows them. It is 
 well known, that the wholesale and indiscreet eman 
 cipations from feudal bondage, which took place in 
 the reign of Henry VIII., landed those bondmen in 
 irrecoverable pauperism. It is stated by some au 
 thorities, that 72,000 were hung in the reign of that 
 monarch ; hundreds of thousands of them became 
 hopeless vagabonds. Their condition in the reign of 
 Elizabeth, gave origin to the first act in the system 
 of the compulsory poor-latys of England a code in 
 many of its features more, far more revolting in its 
 spirit and tendencies than our system of slavery; a 
 
THE DUTIES OF MASTERS. 7 
 
 code which long subsequently gave birth to Malthus s 
 theory of population, an idea far more unchristian 
 than had ever found favor among the holders of 
 slaves in a Christian land. Emancipation is indeed 
 a serious question ; for upon its decision hangs the 
 welfare of the man and his descendants for many, 
 many generations. The ownership of slaves is a 
 grave position, involving a guardianship of the high 
 est order. No man would venture upon it who real 
 ized its duties. He upon whom Providence has placed 
 it, may not rashly, nor unwisely, nor to the injury 
 of his slaves, cast it off, either by sale, or by deser 
 tion, or by emancipation. He must do his whole 
 duty to those who are placed in his charge. The 
 power of the master is intended for the good of the 
 slave, and the responsibilities are proportioned to 
 his opportunities of doing them good. No despot 
 or ruler has more power for the benefit of his sub 
 jects, than the master for the good of his slaves. 
 The position demands the high qualities of firmness, 
 intelligence, wisdom, patience, and kindness. It is a 
 noble position when these qualities are brought to 
 the discharge of its duties. What one master is 
 bound to do, all are bound to do ; and in this we see 
 the mission of the masters in the United States. 
 They have the training, education, and civilization 
 of three or four millions of Africans on their hands; 
 and, however short they may have fallen of perform 
 ing their duties, it must be admitted, that very few 
 masters in modern times have fulfilled them better. 
 Let the slaves of the United States be compared with 
 those of any other land. Compare them with the 
 freedmen of Jamaica, or the masses of St. Domingo. 
 
8 SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 We do not believe that so many millions of slaves 
 in as low a condition at the beginning, were ever 
 before so rapidly advanced towards civilization and 
 self-dependence. I believe, however, that this great 
 and good work might, by a wiser management and a 
 more full realization of duty on the part of masters, 
 have been at least one generation more advanced than 
 it is. In less than one hundred years, under proper 
 treatment, the whole slave population might be made 
 to deserve to earn their freedom, and be placed in 
 a respectable state of civilization, refinement, and 
 education, so as to maintain a fair position in our 
 Republic or any other. That depends on the masters 
 now and hereafter, and perhaps on their being per 
 mitted to discharge their own duties unmolested by 
 those who in this matter neither acknowledge the 
 ways of Providence, nor appreciate the duties of a 
 master. 
 
 The holders of slaves in the United States, have 
 labored under many peculiar disadvantages in an 
 economical point of view. They have complained 
 bitterly of many things for some scores of years. It 
 is evident they have been ill at ease. I think they 
 early mistook the nature of their troubles. There 
 have been peculiar events in the progress of American 
 slavery, some of which require to be appreciated to 
 understand its present condition. One of these is its 
 extraordinary dispersion over an immense extent of 
 territory a diffusion not itself the result of design, 
 but a direct consequence of the purchase of Louis 
 iana. The fertile lands of that great region attract 
 ed immediately a very large emigration of the holders 
 of slaves who had worn out their lands in Virginia, 
 
ITS WIDE DISPERSION. 9 
 
 in the Carolinas, and Georgia. This emigration of 
 masters and slaves, continuing as it did without abate 
 ment for many years, produced memorable results. 
 An immense quantity of land was thrown upon the 
 market in those States. This was especially the case 
 in Virginia and South Carolina. Improved lands fell 
 there to a third, fourth, or fifth of their former value. 
 Many of the rich proprietors, not anticipating this 
 depreciation, were impoverished by purchasing lands 
 constantly falling in value. But they found to their 
 cost, that their thousands of acres were soon of little 
 more value than hundreds had been. Surely this 
 was a heavy misfortune, a destruction of wealth 
 which could not but be felt deeply and widely. The 
 men who emigrated did well, those who remained 
 suffered. One compensation they had the price 
 of slaves was doubled, and a great demand ensued. 
 But for this, universal, unmitigated ruin would have 
 fallen upon the old States, or entire emigration would 
 have become a necessity. I do not believe, however, 
 that the increased value of the slaves ever reached 
 half the amount of the depreciation of the lands. 
 
 All this, however injurious to the masters and to 
 the States of Virginia and the Carolinas, was a benefit 
 to the slave and to the country at large. The more 
 diffused the slave population, the better for the slave. 
 Compare the slaves of Kentucky and Maryland with 
 those of Louisiana and South Carolina. This rise in 
 the value of slaves, was regarded as a boon and set- 
 off to the loss on the land. It gave a great impulse, 
 however, to the internal slave trade ; it divided the 
 slave families and hardened the hearts of the masters, 
 who were unfortunately placed in the position of 
 
10 UNHAPPY RESULTS OF SLAVERY. 
 
 having no other property so saleable as slaves. No 
 doubt the result of this state of things, continued for 
 years, had unhappy consequences both on masters 
 and slaves; the latter being more regarded merely 
 in the light of property, and less entitled to those 
 higher cares and attentions which no slave-owner can 
 neglect without guilt. Too many became mere 
 breeders of slaves for distant markets. Whilst diffu 
 sion had its benefits for those slaves who were carried 
 away, it had its evils for those who remained. The 
 sale of slaves drew off the Attention of masters in a 
 considerable degree from those departments of in 
 dustry suitable for slaves a dereliction injurious 
 alike to slave and master. 
 
 The social and industrial economy of these States 
 was by this whole operation exceedingly deranged. 
 A large portion of the white population suffered 
 severely, and large quantities of improved lands went 
 back to a state of nature. It is probable that, in a 
 national point of view, the increased value of new 
 lands has more than compensated for the loss on the 
 old ; but revolutions in value, if rapid like these, are 
 disasters of no small magnitude. For these troubles 
 the North is in no degree accountable. 
 
 The North is not accountable for the loss which 
 follows that wasteful sj^stem of agriculture which is 
 almost universally pursued at the South, of exhaust 
 ing the land as rapidly as possible. This improvi 
 dence is that of the spendthrift using his capital in 
 stead of his income. It is a serious economical evil, 
 and has inflicted much injury upon the master and 
 slave. The slave is thus trained in a bad school. 
 The master, not sufficiently enlightened to under- 
 
INDUSTRIAL MISMANAGEMENT. 11 
 
 stand his own interests, can never do justice to his 
 slaves. The labor of slaves thrown away, or not 
 well directed, is an injustice to the slave who is serv 
 ing his master to earn freedom and civilization for 
 himself. The product of English agriculture has 
 doubled in thirty years; that of nearly the whole 
 continent of Europe is improving. The owners of 
 our slaves are bound by these important considera 
 tions, to keep even with the foremost in agricultural 
 improvement; it is a sacred duty which they owe to 
 their slaves. 
 
 The masters have committed a great industrial mis 
 take, in devoting themselves too exclusively to special 
 staples. Tobacco, cotton, rice, sugar to one or the 
 other of these, they have generally devoted all their 
 minds and all their labor. This has proved equally 
 injurious to the planter and his people. It has ruined 
 the land and kept down its value ; it has not awak 
 ened the minds nor improved the manual skill of the 
 slave; it tends to a nomadic state of agriculture, in 
 which the lands never long maintain any great value. 
 It should be the aim of the planter, while he makes 
 what annual profit he can from his land, to build up 
 a valuable estate, which, in the end, from its con 
 tinued if not increased productiveness, will be not 
 merely a more valuable bequest to children, but a 
 permanent property in the community, arid a perma 
 nent home for a colony of slaves, who, upon its im 
 proved soil and with its accumulated advantages, 
 may the more rapidly and certainly make advances 
 in civilization, which are impossible with the con 
 tinual movement and the hard labor incident to an 
 incessant attack upon fresh lands. This is not incon- 
 
12 "WHAT THE PLANTER SHOULD DO 
 
 sistent with the idea that diffusion of slaves is for 
 their advantage : diffusion is a benefit, but not con 
 stant movement. The more masters the better ; but 
 the more changes the worse. The exclusive devotion 
 to special staples has scarcely one compensating ad 
 vantage. The true idea of a plantation is an indus 
 trial colony under one head, on which as many 
 branches of industry are concentrated as possible. 
 It should be self-supporting as far as practicable. 
 The present interest of the slaves requires this, and 
 the ultimate interest of the master demands it not 
 less. No single article can be grown by a whole 
 district with such advantage as to purchase all others 
 by its sale. Where land can find consumers close at 
 hand for all its products, there it is the most valuable. 
 It is so in the vicinity of every large city. Land pro 
 duces abundance of food that will not bear transpor 
 tation ; these, its heaviest products, afford the largest 
 profit to the farmer. The planter has this advantage 
 in a high degree. He should not only feed, but to a 
 great extent manufacture the clothing of his people 
 from the products of his land. This implies a con 
 siderable reduction in the crop of the great staples; 
 but not by any means a reduction in the amount 
 received for them. The planters have committed 
 the mistake of constantly overstocking the market. 
 They have planted cotton on the best terms for 
 Great Britain, by keeping such a stock of cotton in 
 her markets as gave the purchaser the whole power 
 over the price. 
 
 The loss to American slave labor which this false 
 policy has produced is incredible. It is probably not 
 less than from one-third to one-half the annual cost 
 
TO INCREASE THE VALUE OF HIS ESTATE. 13 
 
 of maintaining each slave ; it has not been less than 
 from ten to twenty millions yearly. This is in ad 
 dition to a heavy loss incurred in the depreciation of 
 lands by this wretched system. Under a proper 
 course of cultivation, by rotation and home manu 
 facture by the slaves, plantations would increase 
 rapidly in value ; and lands cultivated by slaves 
 would be worth on the average two or three times 
 what they can be sold for at present. This system, 
 too, has not only been an injury to the master, but 
 an immense injustice to his slaves, by retarding 
 their progress and their ultimate freedom many gene 
 rations. Great Britain has made paupers of her 
 millions, for the purpose of underselling other manu 
 facturers in all the markets of the world. Our 
 planters have encouraged her in this false policy by 
 furnishing cotton at her own price, not only to their 
 own pecuniary disadvantage, but to the injury of 
 millions of their people thus delayed in their progress 
 to civilization and liberty. I use these terms with 
 out hesitation, because I have not the least doubt 
 that the wiser and the better adjusted the industrial 
 system of the South, the more rapidly will the 
 Africans be prepared for freedom, and the more will 
 ingly will their masters set them free. In a well- 
 arranged system of slave labor they would improve 
 so rapidly, pay for their freedom so easily, and be 
 come fitted to enjoy it so quickly, that emancipation 
 would come as fast, if not faster, than the wisest 
 heads could prepare for it. 
 
 Whatever be the value of free trade as a theory 
 or department of political economy, I could never 
 understand, with my knowledge of the subject, how 
 
14 FREE TRADE AND SLAVERY ANTAGONISTIC. 
 
 it came so much in favor with Southern politicians. 
 I can understand why England favors it; but our 
 planters, it seems to me, ought to be very shy of it. 
 There is in my view but one sound or endurable 
 defence of Slavery that it is for the good of the 
 slave. On that ground only can Slavery be endured 
 in any part of Christendom for the time to come. 
 Slavery is a special intervention of society in refer 
 ence to a particular class for their best interests. It 
 takes the savage, it takes his labor, his personal 
 liberty; it clothes him, feeds him, takes care of his 
 health ; in fact it descends to the minutest particu 
 lars in the direction and management of the indi 
 vidual man. This is a wholesale violation of the 
 principle, " Laissez faire, laissez passer " which dictates 
 that in what concerns labor and trade and personal 
 dealing men are the best judges of their own inte 
 rests, and must be left to themselves. There are 
 three millions in this country to whom the supposed 
 benefits of free trade are utterly denied. The free- 
 trade men of Europe are, in consistency with their 
 theory, strong abolitionists. When the commercial 
 interests of England arrived at that state in which 
 she found it her policy to become the apostle and 
 pretended exemplar of free trade, she at once, for the 
 sake of consistency, washed her hands of Slavery. 
 The doctrine of the theory which is opposed to free 
 trade is, that in all circumstances, and every where, 
 the interests of laborers, individually and as a mass, 
 should be specially studied and specially promoted. 
 This is consistent with the true theory of Slavery. 
 This doctrine finds in our country thrice as many 
 poor white laborers who depend upon their daily toil 
 
FREE TRADE AND THE FACTORIES OF FRANCE. 15 
 
 for their daily bread, and it holds that their labor, 
 being all that they have, should above all things be 
 the subject of special legislation and social care. 
 The time is coming when the holders of slaves will 
 find the logic of free trade wielded against them with 
 a mighty power, which will derive additional force 
 from their admissions. I am familiar enough with 
 the free-trade literature of England and the conti 
 nent to know that it is utterly opposed to Slavery, 
 and in fact, if the premises of that theory be ad 
 mitted, its logic must soon level every defence of 
 Slavery. 
 
 It has always struck me as strange that the South 
 should patronise a theory which would, if universally 
 adopted, destroy the growing cotton manufactories 
 of France, of Germany, of Belgium, and Russia, as 
 well as those at home, and thus leave the whole of 
 the cotton to find its market in England at the prices 
 dictated there. To prefer one bidder to five or six 
 for such a commodity, betrays an ignorance of com 
 mercial matters of which only an agricultural com 
 munity could be guilty. If the whole influence and 
 example of the United States had been exerted for 
 the diffusion of manufacturing industry throughout 
 the world, there would now be half a dozen effective 
 bidders among the nations for cotton. Now, England 
 fixes the price ; then, the planters would have fixed 
 their own rates. 
 
 My apprehension that the free-trade theory is not 
 the true policy of the South is as strong as this : I 
 have long believed that one of the most serious evils 
 under which the Southern States were laboring was 
 free trade with the Northern States. This is indirectly 
 
16 SOUTHERN COMMERCIAL CONVENTIONS. 
 
 admitted by Southern politicians and men of busi< 
 ness. Witness their commercial conventions, the 
 object of which is independence of the Northern 
 States in trade and industry. These conventions 
 are a struggle in behalf of their own industry ; they 
 are a war of the good sense and necessities of the 
 people against their theory of free trade. It is 
 amusing to observe the workings of this inconsistency, 
 where all the speeches are in favor of free trade, 
 where all the action is against it. These Southern 
 movements spring from a real evil free trade with 
 the North and demand rightly some remedy or 
 alleviation. A complete remedy is attainable but 
 might involve the sacrifice of free-trade theories, to 
 the substantial material interests of the people of the 
 Southern States. In my view of Slavery, that which 
 is a material benefit to the master is so also to the 
 slave. Whatever greatly promotes the true interests 
 of the proprietors of land and slaves enables them 
 to improve their modes of cultivation, to introduce 
 new branches of industry among their people, to 
 provide better for their comfort, health, and proper 
 education. The planter who is barely able to sustain 
 himself can never do justice to his people. The 
 friends of the African should ever be ready for his 
 sake to unite in promoting the true industrial inte 
 rests of the South. It is really far less difficult now 
 to adjust the commercial and industrial interests of 
 South and North by compromise than it ever was, or 
 is now to adjust their political interests. It can only 
 be done, however, in the one case as it was in the 
 other, under an abiding and strong feeling of the 
 value of the Union. 
 
THE NORTH AND SOUTH BOTH SUFFER. 17 
 
 That this free trade with the Southern States has 
 been of immense advantage to Northern industry 
 cannot be doubted. It has gone far to compensate 
 the injuries it has suffered in the trade with England. 
 The South buys from the North to the full amount 
 of its whole industry. It has always purchased more 
 than its crops paid for, and there is a great unpaid 
 balance due from Southern merchants to Northern 
 merchants. The country which buys every thing 
 and sells one or two commodities must always suffer 
 by free trade ; it pays too many profits and too much 
 freight, and its soil is but half employed. Free-trade 
 with England is as great an evil for the South as 
 free trade with the North. It is a varied industry 
 which the South wants. It cannot be had, however, 
 under free trade with England any more than under 
 free trade with the North. 
 
 The approximations already made to free trade in 
 the United States have probably inflicted on the in 
 dustry of this country a greater destruction of capital 
 than would compensate the South five times over for 
 all the depreciation of her lands. The South has 
 at times imagined that what was an injury to the 
 North must be their benefit. It is not so. The 
 industrial power of the country may be so combined 
 as to produce combined advantage; and no great 
 interest can suffer without its being reflected and 
 visited upon others. The North has had great benefit 
 from free trade with the South, but the North has 
 suffered not a little from the evils inflicted on the 
 South by free trade, and that unpaid debt is a part 
 of the suffering. So England pursues her foreign 
 trade with a terrible infatuation; forcing her goods 
 2 
 
18 UNWISE POLICY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 into all corners of the earth, and every few years 
 sustaining immense losses by those who cannot or 
 will not pay. England s true policy is to increase 
 her market at home. If she would add but 20 per 
 head to the consumption of fifteen millions of her 
 people, which they need to make them as comfortable 
 as our slaves, she would have an additional market 
 of $300,000.000, a sum equal to two-thirds of her 
 whole foreign trade. At least one-fourth of the sum 
 would be for cotton for her own people, who need it. 
 When England ceases to manufacture for the world 
 at the lowest prices, she can inaugurate the policy of 
 adequately supplying her own people. The increased 
 prices of her exports will enable her to purchase all 
 her raw materials. England has certainly lost by 
 her policy of manufacturing cheap goods and sending 
 them over the world for sale upon long credit, more, 
 far more, than would now discharge her national 
 debt. She has lost on the price, and she has lost on 
 her credits ; her people have suffered for want of that 
 which was carried away and lost abroad; and this 
 policy has been pursued for centuries. Yet merchant 
 princes have flourished, and so have princely manu 
 facturers. The whole loss has fallen upon the English 
 masses. The laborers are slaves to this system, 
 which has begotten an aristocracy of masters, who 
 are not responsible for the health, food, clothing, or 
 moral training of the slaves upon whose labors they 
 
 grow rich. 
 
 I desire to see our African slaves trained to civili 
 zation and comfort under a better system a system 
 which regards not trade merely, but industry; and 
 not production merely, but the laborer; a system 
 
THE CRT OF DISUNION. 19 
 
 which will bring back to the producers, their masters 
 or employers, a full and fair return for all their 
 labor. The labor of the man, whether slave or free, 
 should be rated at what will sustain him comfortably 
 with his family and educate his children. The free 
 man s wages would be applied by himself; the slave s 
 by his master, under all the responsibilities which 
 bear upon the relation. And that national policy 
 should be pursued which would tend to bring in 
 dustry to this wholesome condition. Let the South, 
 then, take care of Southern industry and make it 
 effective by making it varied; let the policy of living 
 upon one staple be abandoned, and let every planta 
 tion become in time an independent colony of intel 
 ligent laborers. As the Southern States cannot 
 achieve their industrial independence by restrictive 
 commercial regulations, their own Legislatures must 
 find other legal modes of attaining the end ; and in 
 that object, properly pursued, they should be aided, 
 not thwarted. They may confer important favors 
 on the Northern States and secure adequate compen 
 sation in return. 
 
 If the men of the South, in their Legislatures and 
 out of them, had expended but half the mind, half 
 the labor, and half the money they have expended 
 on their theory of free trade, in widening the basis 
 of their industry, varying its branches, and in pro 
 tecting it from Northern and foreign invasion, the 
 South would this day be five times richer than it is, 
 and ten times more contented. 
 
 In the face of such considerations as these, how 
 ever, a cry for the separation of the States is now 
 coming up from various parts of the South. It has 
 
20 THE ADVOCATES OF DISUNION. 
 
 been so before, but it strikes me as rather more por 
 tentous than in times past. It is a striking fact that 
 the only two classes in the United States who are in 
 favor of disunion are the fanatical abolitionists of 
 the North, and the fanatical anti-abolitionists in the 
 South. The numbers North or South actually in 
 favor of disunion are really insignificant. The fana 
 tical abolitionist hates the Constitution of the United 
 States because it recognises slavery, and is its pro 
 tector; he hates the Bible for the same reason. For 
 him there is no enormity under the sun like slavery, 
 and there is no price he would not pay for its aboli 
 tion, even to the lives and peace and happiness of 
 both masters and slaves. But the cry from the 
 South, from what motive does it come? It has come 
 in past times and still comes in a large degree from 
 those who only use it for political ends and to gain 
 concessions from the North to those who profess to 
 be suffering so immensely from the disadvantages of 
 the Union. Of course this kind of talk must be very 
 loud and apparently very earnest to attain its object. 
 It must be supported by some show of reason and 
 logic. This game has been played long and often 
 with success. It has had the effect, however, of cre 
 ating a spirit of dissatisfaction, and of persuading 
 many of the less intelligent that the injuries inflicted 
 upon the South by the Union are much greater than 
 they are, and to make some of them actual advocates 
 of disunion. It is probable that this has taken place 
 to some extent, but clearly not to the extent sup 
 posed by those who are so loud in their cry of 
 disunion. The majority of the Southern people are 
 willing that this cry may be used for political effect, 
 
FANATICS NORTH AND SOUTH. 21 
 
 though at heart as sound patriots as any in the 
 nation. 
 
 There are doubtless some in the South who cor 
 respond in their fanaticism to the extreme aboli 
 tionists of the North, and who, viewing slavery, 
 unending slavery, as the true and proper appendage 
 of every social system, regard the Constitution with 
 dislike because it forms a union with people who do 
 not hold slaves and who do not appreciate the advan 
 tages of the system. The wisdom of these men is 
 precisely of the same stamp as that of the fanatical 
 abolitionists. Their minds are of the same order, and 
 if their places were changed their doctrines would 
 be changed. However great the noise they make 
 for that is one of their joint characteristics their 
 number is not only small, but, what is more im 
 portant, their influence not great. They are known 
 to be men of more imagination than judgment; if 
 they are sometimes eloquent, they are never com 
 petent advisers and safe guides. 
 
 But, however powerless to effect a disruption of 
 the Union these fanatical parties may be, there is 
 danger in the cry. It corrupts the minds of the 
 young, and tends to extinguish patriotism and the 
 sentiment of nationality in the heart of the youth 
 of the country. It is moral treason ; it is resistance 
 to the implied oath of allegiance. No truly sound 
 and thoughtful man can be guilty of it. But this 
 project of disunion deserves more full consideration 
 coming from the South. 
 
 To me no folly nay, let me say no stupidity 
 ever appeared so great as this cry of disunion in the 
 South, and especially when slavery is made the occa- 
 
22 CHRISTENDOM OPPOSED TO SLAVERY. 
 
 sion. In my view, and not in mine alone, the 
 Constitution of the United States is at this moment 
 the mightiest bulwark of slavery now existing in the 
 world. The institution has been crumbling to atoms 
 throughout all Christendom for the last half century. 
 Under the Constitution of the United States alone 
 does it flourish beyond the reach of harm. It is 
 woven into our political institutions, and cannot be 
 separated from them without breaking up the Union. 
 The North, under our present Constitution, is bound 
 to accept slavery as it is, and to protect it. The 
 North cannot escape this obligation, and, let me say, 
 does not desire to escape it, at the expense of the 
 Union arid all the evils to bond and free, North and 
 South, which must follow the disruption. The mass 
 of the people North are and will be faithful to their 
 country as it is, with all its past compromises and in 
 all its present trials. So I trust, also, is the mass 
 of the people in the South. My object is to warn 
 the latter that the subject is the last one that should 
 be lightly handled by holders of slaves. 
 
 The people of Christendom out of the United 
 States are, almost without exception, opposed to 
 slavery: the whole literature of books and journals, 
 civil and religious, is unanimous against slavery as 
 it exists in the United States. The sentiment of 
 modern civilization is against it. It is regarded with 
 special abhorrence in Great Britain we do not say 
 with how much consistency, in view of a population 
 of many millions ground down by the mercantile 
 system of that country below the condition of slavery 
 -but with an abhorrence virulent in proportion to 
 their own sins against humanity. This abhorrence 
 
FOLLY OF EXPECTING EUROPEAN AID. 23 
 
 of American slavery pervades the whole governing 
 population of Great Britain. The truth of this asser 
 tion is familiar to all who have travelled in Great 
 Britain and all who are familiar with her modern 
 literature. Yet to this land where enmity to 
 American slavery is so prevalent where it is diffi 
 cult for an American who never owned a slave and 
 never was in a slave State, to travel without being 
 insulted on the subject of slavery, and without 
 hearing our Northern States denounced as abettors 
 of slavery do some of the Southern orators and 
 writers who favor disunion look for countenance and 
 aid when the day of separation comes and civil war 
 begins. The folly involved in this idea is quite con 
 sistent with that of dissolving the Union for the 
 benefit of slavery. It is not at all improbable that 
 men in high official position, both in England and 
 on the continent, have been sounded upon this sub 
 ject by some of the zealots of disunion. An intima 
 tion from a friend recently in Europe makes it indeed 
 more than probable ; one of the crowned heads of 
 the continent having recently said, as if speaking 
 from special knowledge, that our Union would not 
 last beyond six years more. This information was 
 doubtless derived from one of those busy pests of 
 society found in every country, who are traitors in 
 heart to all its best interests. If any Southern 
 fanatic has been officious enough or fool enough to 
 sound the Courts of Europe with a view to ascertain 
 their views upon the subject of disunion and to pro 
 pitiate them upon that scheme, he has no doubt been 
 preciously duped. They would encourage the treason 
 no doubt, while they contemned the traitor. It is un- 
 
24 FEELING OF EUROPEAN POWERS. 
 
 happily too true that our great Republic is unpopular 
 in Europe. Our advance in population, power, and 
 wealth, as well as in naval and military prowess, 
 would, without any abuse of these advantages, have 
 been sufficient to arouse the jealousy of monarchical 
 Governments; but our recent absorption of Texas, 
 our attack on Mexico, our demonstrations, piratical 
 and diplomatic, upon Cuba, our inordinate appetite 
 for annexation, have caused our country recently to 
 be regarded with a strong dislike, not unmingled with 
 alarm. 
 
 The powers of Europe look upon us as a great 
 fighting bully, boasting of wealth and strength 
 in everybody s face, and laying his club lustily 
 around him without discretion or much care who 
 suffers. They look upon such a character as one 
 who deserves to be humbled and punished. They 
 are all in favor of dismembering him. If the country 
 shall be willing to dismember itself, and thus remove 
 one of the foes they most fear, great will be their 
 self-gratulation. They would gladly be saved the 
 task of humbling the haughty Republicans a task 
 which might involve their suffering some portion of 
 the humiliation they designed for us. No prospect 
 could be more pleasing to the potentates of Europe 
 than the disunion of this country. There can be no 
 reasonable doubt of that. Would they, in that 
 event, be any more our friends than they are now ? 
 Would the people of Great Britain, or those of the 
 continent, be any more the friends of slavery than 
 now ? No : they would exult and say, Slavery is 
 now doomed; it has lost its great shield the Con 
 stitution of the United States. If disunion were 
 followed by civil war, as would be inevitable, the 
 
THE COTTON INFLUENCE. 25 
 
 Governments of Europe would gladly see us wasting 
 that strength on each other which they feared might 
 be some day exerted against them or their projects. 
 They would take no part in a contest in which they 
 could not reasonably expect to reap any solid advan 
 tage. They would allow us to fight it out, because 
 we should be doing their work without any cost of 
 blood or treasure to them. 
 
 But the cotton ! the cotton ! You do not take into 
 the account that Great Britain must have our cotton. 
 It is very true that one of the elements of diplomacy 
 and battle in that struggle would be cotton ; but its 
 importance is over-estimated by the South, if it sup 
 poses that it could dictate terms of peace or secure 
 any desired advantage upon the strength of its cotton 
 bales. Great Britain sacrificed more than the full 
 value of all her cotton factories in her wars with 
 France and Napoleon, and she is now engaged in a 
 contest which may cost as much, to preserve the 
 balance of power in Europe. She might estimate 
 the advantage to her own cotton-growing dominions 
 as more than equal to the disadvantage she would 
 suffer by being, for a time, deprived of any supply 
 of cotton from our Southern States. She might say : 
 " This privation, and the high price of cotton, will 
 stimulate its culture in every climate and soil suit 
 able for it. Instead of relying, as heretofore, mainly 
 on one country and slave labor for cotton, we may 
 look for it hereafter to a score of countries. Our 
 linen manufacture will, in the mean time, flourish as 
 it deserves to do, and when the struggle is over we 
 shall be more the masters of the commercial and 
 manufacturing world than ever." France must soon 
 
26 BRITISH HOSTILITY TO SLAVERY. 
 
 receive her supplies from Algiers. No country would 
 have any advantage over another in regard to the 
 short supply of cotton. 
 
 But even if the English Government were disposed 
 to protect the Southern States and their slaves for 
 the sake of their supply of cotton, it would rouse by 
 such an attempt all the strength and fury of British 
 abolitionism a power potent enough to hurl from 
 its place any Ministry which should become the 
 avowed patron and protector of slavery. It is well 
 known that abolitionism in this country has derived 
 much of its boldness, venom, and money too, from 
 the busy and untiring zeal of the abolitionists of 
 Great Britain ; and it may be well to recollect that 
 a party which was powerful enough to wrest from 
 the Government twenty-five years ago a hundred 
 millions of dollars to purchase the freedom of the 
 slaves in the West Indies would not now permit that 
 Government to become the protector of slavery in 
 the Southern States. No ! Cotton is no foundation 
 on which to erect any hope or help from Great 
 Britain, or any fortress of civil war at home, when 
 slavery engages in a struggle for its existence. How 
 unwise then to trust nay, risk the happiness and 
 welfare of the whole people of the South so entirely 
 upon the success of cotton culture and the future 
 demand for it! Those who thus risk their all upon 
 one rope must expect to be wrecked by unfavorable 
 blasts of fortune. Cotton may be grown elsewhere ; 
 cotton may be superseded ; a popular revolution and 
 civil war in England may ruin the market. No State 
 in the South should be dependent on cotton alone 
 for the necessaries of life ; not even for its luxuries. 
 

 CONSEQUENCES OF DISUNION. 27 
 
 If foreign influences, then, be regarded as out of 
 the way, and the treason of disunion be considered 
 as standing alone and trusting in its own strength, 
 the first consideration will be, where is to be the line 
 of separation the boundary between North and 
 South? It strikes me such a national boundary as 
 that between the States with slavery and those with 
 out is an impossibility. Its vast length would render 
 it indefensible ; its peculiar course and the navigable 
 rivers it involves would give occasion to ceaseless 
 causes of irritation and unending war. There could 
 be no peace with such a boundary, with slaves on 
 one side and abolitionists on the other, and nothing 
 but war could change it ; nothing but sheer force 
 could establish and maintain another boundary. It 
 is well known that a vast majority of the Southern 
 people are against disunion for any cause or under 
 any circumstances, believing that they can maintain 
 themselves, their interests, and institutions more 
 successfully in the Union than out of it, and that 
 they are quite as able to defend themselves where 
 they are as others are to attack them. Supposing, 
 however, for a moment, that this majority is for a 
 time overcome, that disunion is accomplished, and 
 that a popular Government is established, then will 
 arise more reasons for disunion than before; for the 
 questions to be settled and the work to be done will 
 involve more serious difficulties than any legislators 
 in this country have yet encountered. If majorities 
 against the de facto Government do not speedily 
 appear, if discord and dissatisfaction and resistance 
 do not rapidly paralyze the arm of the new Govern 
 ment, it will be strange indeed. The South will 
 
28 HORRORS OF A CIVIL WAR. 
 
 then find on the one hand abundance of the same 
 sort of stuff in Southern Congress as that which 
 has figured in the revolutions of Mexico and South 
 America, and on the other very many true friends 
 of the old state of things. With such a boundary 
 to watch and defend and such discordant elements in 
 its social system, the South would be in no favorable 
 condition to protect its peculiar institution from the 
 incessant attacks which would be directed against it, 
 and through it against the whole country. The wise 
 and the good would then be roused against the 
 unwise, hot-headed men who had brought such diffi 
 culties upon them. It would soon be found that the 
 fanatical disunionists who had caused the calamity 
 were not the men to be trusted in times when sound 
 judgment and firm courage were indispensable. If 
 that day ever comes, the present race of politicians 
 and political economists in the South will be thrust 
 aside with equal contempt for their history and their 
 theories. 
 
 War between the North and South ! This world 
 has never witnessed a greater calamity to human 
 welfare. There is no true patriot, no friend of 
 humanity, but must shudder at the idea. It is, how 
 ever, evidently within the contemplation of some of 
 those fanatics who are now fanning the flames of 
 discord. This extremity of war belongs rather to 
 the fanatics of the South than those of the North. 
 They inflate themselves with the idea that Southern 
 chivalry could readily overcome the manufacturers, 
 mechanics, and farmers of the North. They sup 
 pose that offices and glory would be plenty, and that 
 there would be many opportunities for immensely 
 
ITS EFFECT UPON THE SLAVES. 29 
 
 distinguishing themselves. They do not realize that 
 if a separation had taken place the real men of the 
 South, the men who have not been seen in the mire 
 of politics, would soon take the reins out of such 
 unworthy and incapable hands. The South, like 
 the North, having been long misrepresented, would 
 be roused by the emergency ; her ablest and best 
 men would again take the lead. It is but too true 
 that separation would be followed by war. It could 
 not take place but under very great irritation on both 
 sides. With hot blood to begin with and the flight 
 of slaves to keep it up, a border warfare of the most 
 bitter kind would immediately ensue. It costs more 
 now to pursue a slave than he is worth; but in the 
 case of war on the borders, it would cost more to keep 
 slaves within a hundred miles of the boundary than 
 they would be worth. They would soon become 
 excited, dangerous enemies to the households of their 
 masters, and almost impossible to retain in service. 
 Now, when they fly, they must run hundreds of 
 miles after they cross the slave boundary, and are still 
 in danger of being arrested and returned : then once 
 across the line they would be safe. No slaves would 
 remain near the long boundary; those who did not 
 make their escape would be sent far into the interior. 
 The seat of this fratricidal war, originating in 
 slavery, would soon be along a boundary where there 
 were no slaves. Its heaviest calamities, its worst 
 devastations on the Southern side would fall upon 
 those who were and could be no longer slaveholders. 
 I say nothing of the courage, endurance, or military 
 skill of the respective parties. There is not a doubt 
 they could do each other incalculable injury, and 
 
30 DEPRECIATION OF SLAVE PROPERTY. 
 
 that in a few years the actual cost of the war, its 
 ravages, its interruption of industry, would he equal 
 in value to the whole of the able-bodied slaves. The 
 free States have double the population along the 
 boundary that the States of the South have, and are 
 therefore doubly as strong, without taking into 
 account the paralyzing effect of the slave population, 
 which would have to be watched in the rear, with a 
 powerful enemy in front. I am willing to admit the 
 South could never be conquered ; such an effort 
 would not probably be made, and could not be suc 
 cessful ; but the South could and would be ruined. 
 Any cool and reflecting mind can anticipate some of 
 the principal results: 1. The value of slaves would 
 sink rapidly to one-half, one-third, or a fourth of their 
 present rate, according to their localities. On the 
 line of the boundary they would be worth nothing 
 except for sale in the interior ; great numbers would 
 be sent back for sale. But the value for hundreds 
 of miles in the interior would be affected by uneasi 
 ness of the masters and increased restlessness among 
 slaves. There would be no demand for slaves where 
 this uneasiness extended. Slaves now quiet and 
 peaceful, would soon become agitated by rumors of 
 war and the movement of armies ; a war they would 
 soon learn of which they were the cause; a war 
 they would soon learn involving their freedom or 
 perpetual bondage ; roused by the excitement of such 
 a war, they could no longer be trusted with the lives 
 and property of the masters. Thus roused, and 
 roused they would be, murder and conflagration 
 would rage far and wide. The slaves could burn up 
 all the dwellings, and all the buildings in the South- 
 
EFFECTS ON THE SOUTHERN PORTS. 31 
 
 ern country places in one night. The Southern 
 social system reposes upon magazines of powder, 
 peacefully and safely it is true, and with power and 
 facilities to increase this security. Will the South 
 deliberately kindle a fire over these mines, and incur 
 the hazard of inevitable explosion ? After three years 
 of war with the North, neither woman nor child 
 would sleep in safety in all the South. That Slavery 
 which some now defend and would extend as a bless 
 ing, would then be felt as the direct curse of human 
 ity. It can only under any circumstances be a bless 
 ing, when it is a blessing to the slave as well as the 
 master, and it can never be a blessing to either, but 
 under the reign of peace and a varied industry. 
 
 2. The whole of the Southern ports would be 
 placed under blockade. Not a bale of cotton, not a 
 cask of rice, nor a hogshead of tobacco could be ex 
 ported. I am supposing there would be no help from 
 England, and there is no probability that there would 
 be any. The South might purchase ships, but the 
 South has no sailors and can have none : and even 
 steamers require sailors. Charleston, Savannah, 
 Mobile and New Orleans, would be completely shut 
 out from the foreign market. The main industry of 
 the South would be ruined. What then would be 
 the value of slaves? Maryland would become the 
 seat of war ; slaves could not be retained in any part 
 of that State. Baltimore would be a besieged city, 
 and the Chesapeake would be no longer a channel 
 of commerce, let who might hold its strong places. 
 Baltimore would be utterly prostrated for the time, 
 by a war between North and South. The whole 
 Southern coast would be visited by clouds of North- 
 
32 FALL IN THE VALUE OF LANDS. 
 
 ern coasters and small steamers carrying off slaves 
 by thousands and tens of thousands. It would be 
 impossible to prevent this from the land side. Nearly 
 the whole Southern coast would be open to hostile 
 incursion. The result would be to excite and un 
 settle the slaves, with the results of fire and outrage. 
 Can they be sensible men who shut their eyes to such 
 hazards ? Can they be prudent men who are driven 
 by the mere excitement of party politics, or by petty 
 contests about a few dozen fugitive slaves, to mea 
 sures which might have such dire results? 
 
 3. With the value of slaves and the general dis 
 turbance of agricultural industry in the South, lands 
 would fall in value from twenty to fifty per cent, and 
 become in fact wholly unsaleable. Property in slaves 
 becoming unsafe, undesirable and unprofitable, yield 
 ing no income, and there being in the South no 
 field for the industry or enterprise of the white popu 
 lation, (and in time of war there could be no general 
 cure for that evil,) there would be a large emigration 
 to the North. This would occur not only from the 
 cause just mentioned, but from the ties of kindred 
 and a multitude of others, not the least of which 
 would be the fear of the slaves. This emigration 
 would throw vast quantities of land on the market, 
 and completely destroy any selling value lands might 
 have. I might proceed with this enumeration of 
 calamities which disunion and war would inflict on 
 the South; but surely ruined cities, the loss of all 
 foreign commerce, the destruction of home industry, 
 the loss of slaves by thousands upon thousands, 
 perhaps hundreds of thousands, the demoralization 
 of the remainder, the horrors of servile being added 
 
WAR CALAMITOUS TO THE SOUTH. 33 
 
 to the devastation of civil war, the fall in the value 
 of lands, in addition to that in the value of slaves, 
 and the consequent general ruin of private fortunes, 
 surely these are enough in contemplation to bring- 
 any but madmen to their senses. Men who, for the 
 causes of which the South now complain, can, through 
 want of firmness, or good sense, or patience, drag a 
 whole population into misfortunes such as these, 
 deserve neither wives, nor children, nor home, nor 
 country, nor friends, nor estate. 
 
 Looking upon Slavery, as I do, as an efficient 
 means of civilizing the African, and believing that, 
 however short the masters in the United States have 
 come of their duty in this respect, they have done 
 better than others, and greatly advanced their slaves 
 in civilization and industry, I should deplore the con 
 sequences of such a war in its results upon the slave, 
 as well as upon the master. The almost certain 
 result of this contest would be the entire extinction of 
 Slavery, whereby millions of semi-civilized men would 
 be turned loose, to the utter ruin of the white 
 population, though unfit themselves to form a civi 
 lized community. The condition of this great mass 
 of humanity would speedily fall below its present 
 standard, and their progress in civilization would be 
 indefinitely retarded. Thus war with the North 
 would be equally ruinous to the white and colored 
 population. The end would be the re-colonization 
 of the Southern territory by white labor, and its re 
 union with the North. 
 
 If, contrary to the opinion above suggested, England 
 should interfere by her navy to break up the South 
 ern blockade, the almost certain result would be the 
 3 
 
34 ELEMENTS OF DISCORD IN THE SOUTH. 
 
 loss of her provinces north of the United States and 
 their becoming Northern States, thus making a na 
 tion in the North of overpowering magnitude and 
 strength, able at all times to make head against any 
 European alliance. If no war should follow dis 
 union., there are elements of discord in the Southern 
 States and population which would soon make it an 
 unhappy and undesirable residence. There would be 
 a wide territory and no middle class. An aristocracy 
 can never prosper in such circumstances. The leaders 
 in the South appear now to agree and stand firmly 
 together; but this union is solely in defence of Slavery, 
 supposed to be threatened by the North. If this 
 repressive influence were removed, there would be 
 no longer two or three, but the parties in the South 
 would be as many as the chieftains. The Southern 
 people may respect law and venerate constitutions, 
 but they are guided by their passions; they lack 
 patience and calmness, and fail in the exercise of 
 their common sense. They would be a prey to feuds 
 and divisions. An aristocracy could govern Venice, 
 a city, but not Poland, a country. Kussia would 
 now be a scene of internal strife but for the power 
 of the Czar. Mexico has many enlightened, well- 
 educated, intelligent men, but no educated, intelligent 
 middle class. Mexico is a prey to chieftainship, and 
 so would be our Southern States. So it was when the 
 feudal system prevailed throughout Europe, and so 
 it must ever be where men have a taste for power 
 and leisure to seek for it, and where no other great 
 interests or pursuits interfere. It is not so now in 
 the Southern States, because for the reason already 
 given, the Constitution of the United States, and 
 
THE CONSTITUTION AND THE SOUTH. 35 
 
 the power which upholds it represses the freaks of 
 ambition and the quarrels of the ambitious. 
 
 The true policy of the South is plain to unclouded 
 eyes. The Southern people have a great advantage 
 in the Constitution of the United States; such an 
 advantage as a representation for three-fifths of the 
 colored people could not now be obtained on any 
 terms. That is a mighty power placed in the hands 
 of the white population of the South over the whole 
 policy of this immense country. This vast nation 
 is bound by it to the defence of Slavery against all 
 the world. Slavery by itself is detested now through 
 out Christendom; but Slavery here is a part of the 
 institutions of the freest and most powerful country 
 in the world. Slavery commands respect here, and 
 no where else. The South should stand by the Con 
 stitution while a shred of it is left. It should main 
 tain the Union with all its power, and in the Union 
 it has great power. All its battles should be fought 
 in the Union, for there is its strength; out of the 
 Union Samson is shorn of his locks. It is true the 
 wisdom and good sense of the South in the Union 
 has been far behind its intelligence, and indicates 
 pretty distinctly the troubles the South would meet 
 in the path of exclusive self-control. It has mistaken 
 its economical policy in the Union, and has some 
 times appeared to be more bent on resisting the policy 
 of the North than on studying its own. It is time 
 for the South to understand that, as it claims special 
 consideration for a peculiar institution, the North has 
 also a peculiar institution a large mass of white 
 laborers for whose welfare it should be just as 
 anxious, just as much interested as the South is for 
 
36 SOUTHERN MONOPOLY DEPARTING. 
 
 its large mass of black laborers. The wealth of both 
 sections depends on the proper employment of these 
 two classes of laborers. The laborers of England 
 and other countries, who receive far less wages, nter 
 into direct competition with these Northern laborers; 
 but that competition has hitherto not reached the 
 black laborers, who have enjoyed a long monopoly. 
 Led astray by this advantage, the South has expended 
 its whole strength upon a few products, and, whilst 
 enjoying this advantage, it has resisted inch by inch 
 the policy which Northern labor demanded. In this 
 struggle, the nation has incurred incalculable loss 
 loss of time, of skill, experience, money, and pro 
 ductive power. The parties to the struggle have 
 borne this loss. The South was wrong, and has suf 
 fered the most. The United States might by this 
 time have been the first manufacturing Power in the 
 world ; they possess the elements for this ascendency. 
 In less than thirty years the monopoly of the South 
 will be gone, but in less than that time every pound 
 of cotton which can be grown in the United States 
 can be manufactured here.* The South is now de 
 pendent on a foreign market to sell in, and wishes 
 to be dependent on a foreign market to buy in. Can 
 any man of common foresight fail to see that the 
 South should provide a market for its products at 
 home, not merely in the United States, but for as 
 large a portion as possible at her own door ? In no 
 way could Southern money be better expended than 
 
 * Great Britain now receives one-quarter of her supply of cotton 
 from other countries, and one-fifth of the whole from India. This 
 is a rapid progress in cotton culture. The quantity received from 
 India in 1854 was 1,619,058 cwts., or 404,764 bales. 
 
ENGLAND S POLICY AS TO COTTON. 37 
 
 on premiums on cotton goods manufactured in the 
 South. Cotton ropes, cotton bagging, cotton duck, 
 and drillings, negro clothing, and all heavy cotton 
 goods, should be largely, if not wholly, manufactured 
 at the South. Let not the men who enter this career 
 suffer for want of encouragement or capital. They 
 are the true friends of the South. Let not the 
 students of professorial political economy be heard or 
 heeded against this plain dictate of common sense. 
 The South may find it as profitable to sell cotton at 
 home as in England, and more profitable to feed 
 manufacturing laborers than to plant cotton. There 
 is no profit made on land equal to that made by feed 
 ing men who are close beside the farm. 
 
 But, whatever may be said of the past, the indica 
 tions are clear that the South should change its 
 policy, and vary its industry, and be as little as pos 
 sible at the mercy of the enemies of slavery, and 
 especially of England, the capital and enterprise of 
 which is now ransacking the earth to find territory 
 on which to grow cotton and be rid of this product 
 of slave-labor. England is on the alert looking far 
 ahead for more cotton. The political economy of 
 the South takes no note of this, but persists in think 
 ing and acting as if cotton could only be well sold in 
 England, and as if the market there could never fail 
 nor be cut off. England is so unwilling to be de 
 pendent upon a single country for the chief supply of 
 a raw material so important, that she favors the cul 
 ture of cotton wherever there is possibility of success. 
 The corresponding policy of the South should be to 
 stimulate the manufacture of cotton in every part of 
 the world, so as not to be dependent on England. But, 
 
38 CONDITION OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 no ; the South has favored with all its might a policy 
 fatal to all but English manufacturers, and has evinced 
 particular aversion to the cotton manufactures of their 
 own country. But the manufactures of the North, 
 under all the opposition and unfriendly regards of 
 the South, are now a vastly more important produc 
 tive power than the negro labor of the South. The 
 income of the North for each head of the population 
 is vastly greater than that of the South ; the trade 
 of the North is far the greatest ; the cities are the 
 largest ; the land is worth two or three times as 
 much by the acre, and increasing in value while that 
 of the South is going down. The wealth, power, 
 and productive force of the North surpasses that of 
 the South immensely. It is the division of labor, 
 the division of employment, it is the blended agri 
 cultural and manufacturing industry which has done 
 this. The North has been working for its own peo 
 ple, while the South, like Portugal and Ireland, has 
 been working for England. Both these countries 
 have had full enjoyment of the cheap goods of 
 England, and Ireland, recently more than decimated 
 by famine, has enjoyed them without a penny of duty. 
 The North has the name all over the world of 
 knowing how to make money; but the South speci 
 ally fails in commercial and industrial acuteness. Let 
 the South now begin to study its own interests, not in 
 the light of Say s Political Economy, but in the light 
 of common sense and upon the facts as they exist. 
 Let the next Southern Convention drop the subject 
 of commerce, and take up that of industry, which 
 comes before commerce ; let it be considered how 
 Southern labor can be made more productive by vary- 
 
SOUTHERN COMMERCIAL CONVENTIONS. 39 
 
 ing its operations ; how it can be made more self- 
 dependent and less sensitive to foreign influences; 
 what can be done in that way by individual associa 
 tion, and especially what must be done for that end 
 by the various Legislatures. Let not the Convention 
 fear those who quote Say or Smith. The meeting 
 of these Southern Commercial Conventions is such a 
 violation of their doctrines, that no hesitation need 
 be felt at further rebellion. Let the whole Southern 
 policy be studied and worked out ; then come with it 
 to Congress, prepared to give as well as to take; 
 ready to make those compromises which are as need 
 ful in the progress and policy of our great country 
 as in its original Constitution. 
 
 Whilst the South has been fretting and fuming 
 about some scores of fugitive slaves, worth a few 
 thousands, it has, by its mistaken industrial policy, 
 lost millions on millions. It is time this subject was 
 reconsidered. The South has suffered ; but why let 
 all the grief and all the wrath take the direction of 
 the fugitive slaves ? If the North had encountered 
 such an annoyance, it would have met it at once by 
 an insurance company, and turned over the whole 
 business of pursuing fugitive slaves to the agents of 
 a corporation. But, no ! the wisdom of the South is 
 of that kind which Burke described, when speaking 
 of the determination of England to subdue her re 
 bellious colonies. He said it reminded him of the 
 man in the fable who would shear a wolf. He had a 
 right to shear it; and shear it he would, although he 
 got bristles in place of wool, and lost his life in the 
 attempt. 
 
 Before I close this very long communication per- 
 
40 OLD VIEWS OF SLAVERY REPUDIATED. 
 
 mit me to say again, that I have no words to ex 
 press my estimate of the folly and, I may add, the 
 danger of this cry of disunion from the South. I 
 had hoped that Slavery would be permitted to accom 
 plish peaceably and effectually its great mission of 
 civilizing and training to industry the millions of 
 Africans now in the Southern States, and that the 
 unhappy agitation which exists on the subject of 
 Slavery would subside into mere exhortations to the 
 masters to fulfil their duty to the slaves, or into 
 grave enlightened discussions of what that is and 
 how it should be performed. I had hoped that it 
 would never be disputed, on the one hand, that the 
 African must pay for his education by his personal 
 services, and that he must submit to that personal 
 discipline necessary for his training to civilized life ; 
 and that this discipline and training must be con 
 tinued until the African had undergone the physical, 
 moral, and intellectual change which would fit him 
 to take his place among civilized nations, and to be 
 come the agent for a like process in Africa. I had 
 hoped, on the other hand, that no other doctrine of 
 Slavery would be propounded or defended in the 
 South. But what do we hear now from that quarter? 
 The views of Slavery entertained by all the good 
 and great men of the South down to thirty years ago 
 are scornfully repudiated. The South, or rather those 
 who presume to speak for the South, now avows 
 itself the friend of Slavery on purely money-making 
 or industrial principles, making it such a question as 
 that between horses and mules, or between machinery 
 and manual labor. The man is utterly lost sight of 
 in recent demonstrations on the subject of Slavery. 
 
NEW DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 41 
 
 The African is in theory consigned to endless bond 
 age ; the idea of his gradual improvement seems to 
 be abandoned. The doctrines of Slavery, as now 
 avowed by many who profess to speak the sentiments 
 of the South, are the most offensive which can be 
 conceived. They are an offence to the civilized 
 world, and if continued will cut off all sympathy 
 between the South and the civilized world. The 
 day may come when these doctrines will be quoted 
 with fearful effect against the South. If we can 
 credit these men who affect to represent Southern 
 feeling, the South is now a great slavery propaganda, 
 which would spread that institution not only over all 
 the unoccupied territory of the United States, but, 
 if possible, over the free States and throughout the 
 world, asserting that the form of society now exist 
 ing there, including Slavery, is a model for all the 
 world, and that society, as it exists elsewhere and 
 without Slavery, is a failure. Admitting all the 
 faults and failings existing in society without Slavery, 
 this is an unpardonably exaggerated position. It 
 exhibits an excitement, if not an aberration of mind 
 not merely inexcusable, but dangerous. If such 
 doctrines continue to be propounded in the South ; 
 if they penetrate the minds of the whole people ; if 
 such doctrines find their way into the legislation and 
 the whole public policy and literature of the South, 
 then, for one, I shall give up all hope of the true 
 mission of Slavery ever being fulfilled there. I shall 
 look for an early and violent end of the institution 
 in the United States, and for the utter ruin and pros 
 tration of that society which upholds Slavery as a 
 normal industrial institution. The South cannot 
 
42 A QUARREL WITH CHRISTENDOM. 
 
 assume, hold, and act upon that principle without an 
 undying quarrel with the North and with the whole 
 civilized world. In that quarrel Slavery would soon 
 not merely succumb, but revenge itself signally upon 
 those who could so pervert its real uses and shut 
 their eyes to its proper termination. With the free, 
 rich, and populous States, including Canada on the 
 north and the free States of Mexico on the south, 
 with every nation in Christendom in opposition to 
 Slavery as they profess it, what would become of the 
 South ? If the South has cause of irritation now 
 and is unable to subside into any thing like repose, 
 what will be the condition of things when all the 
 enemies of Slavery are unchained ? In that day no 
 man, white or black, can travel in all the extent of 
 the South unquestioned; and a police as rigid as that 
 which now watches over Paris will extend its eyes 
 and arms not merely over the cities, but throughout 
 the country. No man, white or black, can go where 
 he is unknown without passport and letters. The 
 press will be muzzled, men s mouths will be muzzled, 
 and military despotism will reign where any thing 
 reigns but anarchy. 
 
 If this experiment of African Slavery in the Uni 
 ted States comes to this unhappy end, it will unques 
 tionably be the work of the slaveholders, and it will 
 then be concluded that they were doomed to this mad 
 ness as the precursor of destruction to them and their 
 peculiar institution. Plow unhappy all this ! What 
 human woe and misery would be involved in the 
 titter ruin of the South ! How, then, would the 
 whole race of abolitionists rejoice in what they would 
 regard as the just judgment of Heaven ! 
 
UNSCRUPULOUS POLITICIANS. 43 
 
 The truth is, our entire country has Mien into the 
 hands of politicians, whose whole thoughts are bent 
 upon getting into office and remaining in office. Our 
 Legislatures, State and National, are filled with men 
 wholly unfit for their position, men too much bent 
 upon their private interests to think of public con 
 cerns, and incapable, even if patriotic, of serving 
 the public with honor to themselves or advantage to 
 the people. Whatever the special demerits of these 
 unscrupulous politicians, there is one of their prac 
 tices peculiarly baneful to the country. They seize 
 upon all the excitements, anxieties, desires of the 
 people, and upon all their great leading interests, 
 upon all sectional differences, and turn them into 
 electioneering topics ; they inflame every excitement, 
 deepen every anxiety, exaggerate every desire, mag 
 nify or depress, as suits them, the importance of every 
 public interest ; they widen every difference ; they 
 put themselves forward as the champions of every 
 cause, and make the impression that their advocacy 
 or opposition is indispensable. Whatever the differ 
 ence, the politicians of both North and South are 
 given to this detestable practice. While some are 
 blowing up the excitements of abolitionism in the 
 North, others are playing upon the natural sensitive 
 ness in the South on the subject of Slavery. This 
 game has been played in the South until the whole 
 country is ready to burst into a flame. How far this 
 apparently fierce excitement does really reach the 
 intelligent and virtuous people of the South, it is 
 difficult to say; but there is reason to apprehend 
 that it has reached a dangerous extent. It has been 
 fanned and fed with an industry very likely to beget 
 
44 DESIRE OF EXPANSION. 
 
 such xesults. The dose of exaggeration, dire alarm, 
 and fiery indignation, yearly administered to the 
 nervous system of the people of the South, has been 
 with eacli occasion increased until the paroxysm is 
 imminent. What do these men care ? If disunion 
 follow, there must still be offices and power and 
 salaries, all accessible by the same practices. 
 
 The kind of emancipation now most needed at 
 the South is from the thraldom of this excitement 
 and the official agency of these bad or rash men. It 
 is also needed at the North ; but the hazards of the 
 game are widely different in the two sections. Let 
 the calm, the prudent, and wise men of the South 
 betake themselves to consideration ; let them thrust 
 from their presence every man of noise, every ex 
 citement-monger, every disunionist. Let the South 
 think no more of conquering new States and adding 
 more territory, but rather think of consolidating, 
 enriching, and defending the wide domain already 
 conquered. The policy of pursuing new conquests 
 puts the whole in hazard. 
 
 It should be noted that all the value added by the 
 labor of slaves to new territory is taken from the 
 lands whence they are drawn. For every new plan 
 tation stocked with slaves, an old one is sold. The 
 effect of a great emigration of slaves is a mighty 
 depreciation of the lands which they leave. This 
 may not be visible immediately, but the effect is 
 inevitable. Yet such is the mania for slave power, 
 that this impoverishing process is either not per 
 ceived or disregarded. This mighty effort to extend 
 Slavery for the sake of political power, strikes me 
 painfully in reference to Southern character. Many 
 
A REMEDY PROPOSED. 45 
 
 regard every thing as fair in politics; but, apart 
 from that, there certainly does appear to be some 
 thing mean and unworthy of the noble character 
 which the people of the South have borne in times 
 past, in this incessant effort to extend the area of 
 Slavery for the sake of political power. It cannot 
 be any protection to Slavery; for power gained at 
 the expense of a good understanding with the North 
 cannot be any protection ; it is peril. The Constitu 
 tion of the United States and its friends are the real 
 protection of Slavery. The alienation of those 
 friends is a work to which some men in the South 
 seem now seriously devoted, the disastrous effects of 
 which no slave power can avert. 
 
 The subject of fugitive slaves, in presence of these 
 more important considerations, is of small conse 
 quence. Take care of the millions, and there will 
 be less trouble about the scores; but take care of 
 them at any rate, for they are in danger, and that 
 danger involves perils so great that those who would 
 encounter them without just cause cannot be warned 
 in terms too strong. 
 
 These evils are not without remedy. Let wise 
 and prudent men of the North and South take up at 
 once the whole of their sectional differences. A con 
 vention of a score from each side, not being politi 
 cians or candidates for any office, assembled to con 
 sult upon the interests of the whole country, cculd 
 in a fortnight or two devise a system of policy touch 
 ing these differences and the great interests of the 
 country, the adoption of which could be secured; 
 and, whilst tranquillity and progress would be 
 assured at home, the moral power of the country 
 
46 EFFECT OF A TRUE POLICY. 
 
 throughout the world, now seriously impaired and 
 diminished, would be restored. Under such a policy 
 the career of this country in arts, in industry, in 
 power, and it might be hoped in justice and mode 
 ration, would far exceed any anticipations ever yet 
 formed. 
 
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