Selections: Slavery--The Evil--The Remedy

To the Editor of the Tribune: '%And can ihe liberties of a nation bc thousl secure hen we have removed iheir only fir bnsie, a conviction in the minds of the pe.op thnt these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed, I tremble for my country, when Irefiec that God is just: thnt His jnstice cannot slee forever: that, considering ïmmbers, nature anc natural means only, a revnlutjon in the wheel o fortune, an exchange ofsituaiion, is among possible events: that it may become probable by supernatural interference! The Almighty haa no attribute which can take sides.with us in tuch a contest." - Jcffcrson's Notes on Virginia. Thomas Jefferson never thought of the absurdity of debatmg the question whether Slavery be an evil, nor was he indulgent to the delusivo idea that it would be perpetual. He reduced the subject to its certain elements: - the master rnust libérate the slave, or the slave will exterminate the master. The conclusión is not weakened by the history of the past. The same color in the ancient Repubücs enabled the State to use emancipation as a safety valve: yet notwithstanding the thorough amalgramation of the freed man with the ree bom, servile wars nearly extinguished by violence the noblest nations of antiquity: while no man dare say that Slavery was not the secret cause of thcir ullimate ruin. But if "His justice" cannot "sleep forever," and the tragedy so awfully predicted ehould never occur, still must we regard Slavery as the greatest evil thal ever cursed a nation. SJavery is an evil to the slave, by depriving nearly three millions of men of the best gift of God to man - liberty. I stop here - this is enough ofitself to give us a full anticipatien of the long catalogue of human wo, and physical and intellectual and moral tbasement which followe in the wake of Slavery. Slavery isan evil to the inaeter. lt is utterly subversive of the Christian religión. - It violates the great kw vpon which that religión is based, and on account of which it vaunts its preeminence.It corrupta our offspring' b_y neceeBary tssociation with an abandoned and degraded race, engrafting in the young mmd ana beartall the vices and none of the virtues. It ie the source of indolence and de6tructive of all industry, which intimes past among the ii'ise has ever been regarded as the first friend of religión, morality and happiness. The Door despise Inbor, because 6lavery makes it degrading. The mass of elaveholders are dlers. It ie the mother of ignorance. The sysetn of Common Schools has not 6ucceeded n a 6ingle Slave State. Slavery and Educaion are natural enemies. In the Free States one in 53 over 21 years ie unable to read and write: in Ihe Slave States one in 13.5 is unable to write and read!It is opposed to Literatura even in the eduated classes. Noble aspirations and true fflory depend upon virtue and good to man ""Jie conscious injustice of Slavery bange as a mill-6tone about the necks of thesons of gen as and will not let them up. It is destructive of all mechanical excelence. The Free Staten build ships and eteam ars for the nations of the world - the Slave States import the handles for their axes - hese primitive tools of the architect. The dncated population will not work at all - the neducated must work without science and o ourse without skill. If there be a given mount of mechanical genius among a people f is of necessity developad in proportionas a wliole or part of the population are educated n the Slave Stales the sraall portion educaed is inert. It is antagonistic f o the Fine Arts. Creaions of beauty and sublimity are the embodiments of the soui's imaginings: the fountain lust öurfely be pure and placid whence these loriotis and immortaltand lovely images are eflected. Liberty has ever been the molher f the Arts. It retarás Population and Wealth. Con pare New York and Virginia, Tennessee and Ohio - States of equal natural advantages and equal sges. The Wealth of the'Free States is in a much greater ratio even superior to thatof the Slave States. The Manufactures of Ihe Slave as compared to those of the Free States are as 1 to 4 nearly, as s sliown by by statistics. I consider the accumulation of Wealth in a less ratio. It impoverishes the Soil and defaces the loveliest features of Nature. Washington advises a friend to remove from Pennsylvania to Virginia- saytng ihat cheap lands in Virginia were aa good as the dear lands in Pennsylvaniu, and anticipating the abolition of Slavery. would be more productive. His anticipations have pcrished- Slavery still exists- the wild brier and thé red fox are now there the field growth and the inhabitants! It induces National Poverty. SJaves consu me more and produce less than Freemen. Henee illusive wealth, prodigality and bankruptcy, without the capability ofbearingadversity or recovering from its infhience; then come despair, dishonor and crime. It is an evil to the free laborer, by forcing him by the laws of competition - supply and demand - to work for the wages of the slave, food and shelter. Tho poor, in the Slave States, are the most desütute native population in the United States. It eustains the public sentiment in favor of tho deadly affray and the duel - those relies of a barbarons age.It is the mother and the nurse of Lynch Lato, which I regard os the most horrid of all crimes, not even excepting parricide,which ancient legislatura thought too impossible to be ever supposed in the legal code. If all the blood thus shed in the South could be gathered together, the horrid image which Kmmettdrew of the cruelty of nis judges would grow pale in view of Ihis grcater terror. Wliere all the evils exist, how can Libertj Constitutional Liberty, live? No indeed, cannot, and has not existed in conjunctio with Slavery. We are but nominal freemen for though bom to all the privileges known t the Constilution and the lawp, writlen an prescriptive, we have secn struck down wit the leaden hand of Slavery, the most gloriou bnnner that freedom ever bore in the face o men - "Trial by Jury - Liberty of Speech an of the Press." The North may be liable t censure in Conyress for freedom of speech may lose the privilges of the Post Office an the Right of Petition, and perhaps yet b free - bnt we of the land of Slavery, are oursel ves slaves ! Alas for the hypocritical cry o liberly and equality which demagogues sounc for ever in our ears! The Declaration of In dependence comes back from all nalions, not in notes of triumph and eelf-elation, but thundering ín our ears the everlasting He - making us Infidels in the great world of Freedom - raising to ourselves idols of wood and stone, inscribed with the name of Deity, where the one invisible and true God can never dweil. Theblood of the héroes of ;76 hasbeen shed in vain. Thejust expectaiions of Hamilton and Franklin and Sherman and Mor ris and Adams of the North, are betrayed by the continuance of Slaverr. The fond antici pations of Washington and Jefferson and Mad ison and Mason of the South, have not been realized. The great experiment of Republican Government has not been fairly tested. - Ir the Union should not be perpetual nor th American name be synonymous wilh that o liberty in all soming time, Slavery is at onc the cause, the crime and the avenger! Are we indeed of that vaunted Saxon bloo which no danger can appa], no obstacles ob struct, and ehall we sit witli shivering limb and dewy feet by the running stream wit inane features and etolid gaze expecting thi flood of evïls to flow past, leaving the charme dry? We who can conques all things else shali we be here only eubdued, ingloriousl wbispering with white Ups, There is no Rein edy? Arethe fowls free in t.he wide heav ens, the fishes secure in the depths of th ocean, the bea.-ts antrammeled in the fores wilds, and shall man only, man formcd in th image of the Deity, the heir of immortaliiy be doomed to hopeless servitrdc? Yes, ther is a remedy. There is one of four conaequences to whic SJavery inevitably teads: A contiununce o: the present relatlve position of the master 8nc the 6lave, both as to numbers, intelligence ace physical power; Or on exterrainaf.ion of th blacks; emancipation and rem oval, or e mancipation and a community of interest between the races.The present relativo position between th black and whites (even if undisturbed by es ternal influences, which we cannot hope, cannot long continue. Siatistics of number show that in the whole Slave States th black increases on the white population. - The dullest eye can also eee that the African by association with the white race, haa im proved in intellect, and by transferred to a températe clime, and forced to labor and to throw off the indolence of his native land, he is increasing in physical power; while the white, by the same reversad laws, is retrograing in the same respects. SJavery then can not remain forever as it is. That the black race will be exterminated seems bardly probable from the above reflections, and because the great mass of human passions will be in favor of the incfease of the slaves ad interim. Pride, love of power, blind averace, and many other paesions are for it, and against it on!y fear in the opposite scale.We are forced, therefore, to the conclusión that the islave populatiun must increaFe,there is no retreat but in exterminaron ofthe whiles. Athens, Sparta, Sicily, and lome nearly, Hayti in modern times, did fal by servile wars. I have shown clsewhere liat the slavery ofthe blacka m the modern, s more dangerons than the slnvery of the vhites in the ancient system: then the inteligent slave was mcorporated into the high caste of quondam masters, on eternal safetyalve, which yo: did not 6ave from explosions eminently disastrous. The negativeof the second proposition, hen, establishes the third, unless we avail ourselves of the last - emanci-palion. If my reasoning and facts be correct, there s not a sane mind in all the South who vould notagree with me, that if we can De saved frorn the first named evils, by all means emancípate. 'Emancipation is ntirely safe. Sparta and Athens turned tie slaves by thousands into freedom with afety, who fought bravely for their common country. During the Revolutionmany emancipated slavesdid good service n the canse of Liberty. We learn from Vf r. Gurney and other sources to be reied upon, that British West India emanipation has been entirely successful. and roductive of none of tliose evils which veré so pertinaciously foretold by intersted pro-slavery men. The British have egiments of black men who make fine oldiers - protectors, not enemies of the mpire. But above all I rely not upon ound a -priori reasoning only, but rather pon actual experience. There are in ie United States, by the last census, 386,65 free blacks; 170,758 of whom are n the free, and the remainder in the slave tates. There are also 2,485145 slaves - so that in fact -about one-sixth of the hole black race in Ameiica are alreadyheel No danger or evil consequence has ensued from the rcsidence of these 386.265 freedmen among us. Who then will be so absurd as to contend that the liberation of the other five-sixths will endanger the safety or happiness of the whites? I repeat then that emancipalion is entirely safe. Emancipation must either be by the voluntary consent of the masters or by force of law. I regard voluntary emancipo tion as the most probable, the most desirable, and the most practicable. For the slave-holding land-holder would not be less rich in consequence, the enchantmentof the valuo of land would compénsate for the loss in slaves. A comparison of the price of lands of equal quality in the Free and SJave States will prove this conclusively. If, however, by force of law, thelaw ha ving once sanctioned slaves as property, the great principie which is recognized by all civilized governments, that private property cannot be taken for public use without just compensation - - dictates that slaves should not be liberated without the consent of the masters, or without paying an equivalent to the owners. Under the sanction of the law, one man invests the proceeds of his labor in slaves, another in land: in the course of time it becomes necesssary to the common weal to buy up the lands for redistribution or culture in common - how should the tax be laid? Of course upon lands, slaves and personal property- in a word, upon the whole property of the whole people. If, on the other hand, it should nearly concern the safety and happiness of society, both the slave holder and the non-slave holder, that slaves should b'e taken and emancipated, then by the same legitímate course of reasoning the whole property of the State should be taxed for the purpose. If emancipation shall take place by force of law, shall it be by the laws of the States or by the laws of Congress? Let Congress abolish Siavery wherever she has jurisdiction - in the military places, in the territories, and on the high seas, and in the District of Columbia, if the contracts of cession with Virginia and Maryland allow. I lay down the broad rule that Congress should do no more for the perpetuation of Siavery than she is specially bound to do. The debates in theral Convention prove thattheFree States did not intend to assume the responsibilities of Slavery. In the language of Roger Sherman and others, they could not acknowledge the right of "property in men." There is then no moral obligation in the Union to sustain the rights of the South in slaves, except only they are morally bound to regard the contract with the South, and in the coustruction of that compact, the presumption in all cases of doubt is in favor of Liberty. On the contrary the U. States are morally bound by all means consistent with the Constitution to extinguish Slavery. The word slave is not used in the Constitution, because the promises of all the Southern members of the Convention led to final emancipation, and a noble shame on all hands induced the expulsión of the word from the charter of Human Liberty. I cannot agree that there is any law superior to that of the Federal Constitution. It is the part of Christians to model human laws after the Divine code, but the law in the present state of light from on High, must be paramount to the Bible itself. If any otherpractice should prevail, the confusión of religious interpsetrations of the Divine Will would be endless and nsufferable. In a country where Jews, Chrtstians and Infidels, and Deists and Catholics and Protestants, and Fouriersts and Mormonites and Millerites and Shakers, all are concentrated into one naion, it would be subversive of all govern nental action, that each sect should set up a Divine code as each "undersfands t," superior to the Constitution itself. -If a case ever arises where conscience dictates a different doctrine - that the penalty of the law is rather to be borne than its prescriptions obeyed - tlien also there arises at the same time a case where the sníFerer must look to God only for approbation and sustainment - he has passcd f rom all appeaj to mankind. I dissent, then, from the ultra anti-slaery and the ultra pro-slavery men. I annot join th'e North in the violation of Constituíion - I cannot stand by the South n asking the moral sanction of the North; or do I regard it as a breach of the contitutional compact that she should seek a íigher grade of civilization by using all egal means for the entire expulsión of lavery in the U. States. Congress havng no power over slavery in the States, ie States, each one for itself, where its onstitution does notforbid, certainly has nd should exercise the power of purchase nd emancipation. In Kentucky the Conitution forbids the Legisláture lo act pon the subject. We must thereforelook to a Convention, or that which I mosl hope, to voluntary emanci pation. Enlightened self-interest, hun?anily and religión, are moving on with slow yet irresistible forcé to that final result. Let the whole north in mass, in conjunction with the patriotic of the South, withdraw the moral sanction and legal power of the Union from the sustainment of Slavery, then our existenee as a people with undivided interests may yet be consummated. May the Ruler of all nations, the common Father of all men, who is no respecter oï persons, and whose laws are not violated with impunity by individuáis nor by States, move us to be just, happy and Free. May that spirit which has eternally consecrated in the administration of men Salamis and Marathon, and Bunker's Hill and Yorktown, inspire our hearts, till the glorious principies of seventy-six shall be fully vindicated, and throughout the land shall be established. "Liberty and Union, one and inseparable, now and for ever."